


But I'd still be alright, Just coming back to you

by IncorrectValk



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, introduction to Apollo, just a gay fic, mention of sexual assualt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23519584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncorrectValk/pseuds/IncorrectValk
Summary: the story of the baby, Apollo and the love of her life Finka. this is their story.I'm bad at summaries but I promise, you'll enjoy!
Relationships: Kody "Kingdom" Ammerati/Elena "Mira" María Álvarez, Thaila “Apollo“ Kostas/Lera "Finka" Melnikova
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. The light on the horizon was brighter yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic for my New OC Apollo, she is baby. 
> 
> There is a part in this fic that has a bit of sexual assault/attempt rape so please be aware of that... other than that, I hope you enjoy. I enjoyed writing this one a lot!

The smoke and ashes finally began to settle around her as Apollo stood up into the bright light of the Greek sun. Her ears were ringing from the explosion, thankfully her helmet took all the impact. The black of her uniform was dusted in dirt and probably blood. She reached down for her rifle that had left her grip when her body was thrown back from the blast. Apollo looked around for her squadmates, only seeing them lying awkwardly on the ground and she knew it wasn’t in a natural way. She walked back towards the wall of the old tomb, a bit of a limb to her step as she peaked over and saw the white masks have disappeared as she had recovered the blast.

She cursed softly as she made her way down the stairs, looking for any clue as to which way the white masks went. Upon finding the route, she carefully jogged out after them. She couldn’t let them escape with whatever they had breached this sacred tome for. She felt like she was running for hours when she followed through the paved path underground. The white masks must have been planning this for weeks, months maybe even years.

As she went further down the tunnel, the more the sound of gunshots became clear. She slowed her pace, holding her weapon up as she started to approach the light. The white masks seemed to be in conflict with a group of people that wasn’t the EKAM. She watched for a few moments before coming to the conclusion that whoever is fighting the white masks was her ally. To her right she saw a woman who wore camouflage pants and a deep green vest tackle one of the white masks down to the ground, finishing him with a swift slash to the man’s neck before being grabbed from behind and lifted into the air. Apollo reacted quickly, taking the shot with any hesitation. The man dropped her to the ground before falling down himself with a thud. 

Apollo made a quick sprint over to the woman, helping her to her feet and behind cover. The woman stared at her, doing as she did seconds ago before giving her a nod. Apollo looked up from cover only to drop immediately after being met with suppressing fire. She heard the woman beside her curse in what sounded Italian. 

Apollo pulled a smoke grenade from her belt and tossed it over her shoulder, waiting a second for it to pop and dispense before motioning for the woman to lead them away. Apollo easily kept pace with the woman as she led them down another out of the conflict. Stopping when they come in contact with two other women. 

“Alibi! You’re safe!” One said, pulling her bandana down from her mouth, looking over at Apollo. “You’re with the EKAM? We heard they lost contact with some of their operators.”

“Yeah, my squad died from that giant blast a few minutes ago.” She said bluntly, staring at the woman. “Apollo is my code name.”

The woman nodded, wiping her forehead. “I’m Crow.” She points over to the woman in a yellow, black outfit staring down the tunnel that they came through. “She’s Finka.”

“I’m Alibi.” The Italian said, dropping to her knee. “You really saved my life there Apollo, thanks.”

“No problem. Anyone who is an enemy of the white masks is a friend of mine, and no offense, you looked like you need help.”

“I was starting to get a bit tired.” She admits pulling off her beret and pushing her hair back with a heavy sigh. “You have a good shot,”

“So they tell me. I think it’s merely luck.”

“Well, you got some good fucking luck then.” Alibi chuckles as she checks her gun. 

Finka walks back over to the group speaking into the radio. “We have one of EKAM Operatives with us, she reports her squad has been taken out.”

“Very well, bring her along with you. Don’t think the Greek government will be too pleased if we left one of their men behind. Complete the mission.”

“Roger that six.” The short hair woman says into the radio before turning and looking at the smaller woman. “Pretty small for an operator, how’d you wiggle in?”

Apollo opened her mouth to respond but found herself frozen as she stared in awe of her beauty, making Finka smile brightly. 

“Would you like a picture?” She says, “I’m sure it’ll last longer.” 

Alibi put a hand on the smaller woman’s shoulder and gave a short shake. “Don’t tease her too bad Lera, she’s clearly not used to being in the presence of angels.”

Apollo watches as Crow throws her head back with a groan, making her teammates crack a smile. 

Apollo, finally beginning to feel the overwhelming heat, dropped to a knee as she pulled off her helmet, letting it roll to the side as she pulled off her balaclava. She reached for her canteen, trying not to swallow it all in one go, instead of taking small sips of the cool liquid. 

“Surprised you lasted that long, wearing all that shit in this heat,” Alibi says watching the woman pour a bit of water over her head. “What’s with the balaclava and goggles anyway?”

“I didn’t even notice it… too lost in the moment I suppose.” Her hand goes to push back her shaggy black hair, ignoring the question while her eyes connect with the tall Belarusian woman, who was staring a little too long for it to be professional. “But don’t worry about me, I’m trained to withstand this heat. What is this mission you’re being made to drag me on? Because I would much rather just go after the white mask, they might’ve taken something from that temple.”

“Whatever they found and taken from there is long gone,” Finka says, tugging on her jacket's collar. “Our mission is to simply track them to their base. Which we’ve been trying to do for almost a week and a half. These guys are constantly moving.”

“They’re planning something…” Crow says with a scowl. “Let’s go before we lose them.”

Apollo follows behind the three women as they begin to trek out of the area towards a beige Jeep. 

Apollo could have sworn she shall the one called Finka turn and stare at her multiple times, but she said nothing of it because the thought alone made her blush a bit. 

Reaching the Jeep, Alibi jumped into the passenger seat as Crow took her place behind the wheel, leaving Finka and Apollo to sit in the back. 

Apollo shifted in the seat as crow began driving. She pulled off her bag and let it drop between her legs. She turns to look at the redhead who is working with some kind of syringe. Apollo watches In silence, noticing the little handshakes she does every few seconds as she giggles with the blue liquid. 

Finka turns to Apollo with a small smile. “Roll up your sleeve please.”

“Why?” Apollo asks but begins to loosen her right arm sleeve. “What is that?”

“Nanobots.”

“Nano-what now? Are you trying to turn me into a robot?” Apollo hesitates as Lera softly takes her hand in her own. 

“The nanites are made of zinc with the pharmacological cocktail laced into the nanobot’s construction,” Finka explains as she slides the syringe into Apollo’s arm, looking her in the eyes. “When I activate the signal the nanobots disintegrate with the zinc being treated as a nutrient by the body and facilitating the absorption of the drugs, it’ll give a boost of adrenaline of sorts. Help you steady your aim, catch your breath and whatnot.”

Apollo watches as Finka’s handshakes slightly as she goes to remove the syringe from her arm. Apollo places a hand over the woman’s and gives a small nod of reassurance. 

Finka swallowed hard as she let her hand be guided to the syringe, grabbing it and pulling it out. The small woman didn’t say anything, just a small smile, making Finka burst inside. Thinking to herself, “oh no, not again.”

Apollo was quick to break eye contact, readjusting her sleeve and armor. She didn’t know what she was doing just a moment ago but she chose to ignore it and pretend nothing happened. This whole situation was weird and she didn't understand it. 

The heat of the sun was still bearing down on her, making her feel a bit exhausted. She rested her head against the window and closed her eyes for what she thought was a few seconds but when she gets shaken awake the sky is dark and Finka is looking down at her. 

Apollo sits up, wiping the drool from her chin as she takes in her surroundings. “How far did we travel?”

“Pretty damn far,” Finka says, helping her out of the jeep. “You slept for maybe seven hours, the heat really took the energy out of you.” 

Apollo hmms in response as she moves towards the two women staring off into the distance. Crouching beside them, she takes in what she sees. A full operative base. “How’d they manage to hide this. I mean sure, they're deep in the mountains but our scanners wouldn't just miss this…” 

“They have towers up that interfere with any kind of surveillance that isn't their own. I can’t get axew in.” Crow mumbles, “I knew we should've brought Dokkaebi on this mission.”

Apollo pulls her balaclava back over her head, unclipping her helmet from her bag. “Well, I'll just go take them down easy.” Crow and Alibi turn and just look at her, watching as she secures her helmet on. “I have a plan, don’t worry.”

“I won’t allow whatever you’re thinking without a full explanation.”

“It’s a shame that you don’t control me then, huh.” 

As Apollo brushes past her, Finka quickly grabs her arm tightly. “You’re with my squad now. Any actions you do impact not only me and my squad, all of rainbow and frankly, I also don’t want to risk losing you.”

Apollo stays silent, staring at the taller woman. 

Alibi breaks the tension with a forced cough. “What plan did you have, Apollo.”

“Honestly I was just going to sneak in and blow up the towers honestly. I didn’t think too far about it.” Apollo scratched the back of her head. 

“You can’t just go get yourself killed Apollo,” Finka says softly, looking down at her. “You are a valued member of this group.”

“Fine,” Apollo responds, pulling off her backpack. “I can think of something else that could help, but what’s the objective of this mission? Are we killing them all? Going for files or what they stole back at the temple?” 

“A bit of everything.” Alibi sighs, taking a sip from her canteen. 

“Okay, well. The dark will actually help with what I’m thinking.” Apollo says walking over to the edge. “How far can Axew get without getting jammed?” 

“About maybe twenty-five, thirty feet in the air, why?”

“You think you can attach this to it?” Apollo pulls out a small object that reminds Crow of Echo’s drone. 

“What is that?” Alibi asks, interest rising in her voice.

“It’s just something I’ve been working on,” Apollo hands it over to Crow, who immediately works on securing it to the bottom of the drone. “It’s a heat-detecting object, it’ll show me where everyone is, as long as they're in the range of course. It works better in a building but it’ll get the job done.”

Finka looks impressed as Crow begins the descent of her drone towards the base. A few seconds later, Crow gives a nod over to Apollo who clicks something on her right wrist, activating a screen, much like Echo. It begins to beep quietly and Apollo smiles. “It worked.” 

Finka walked over and looked down at the woman’s wrist, the screen showing the view of the base and its occupants through their body heat. She stared in awe at what she was seeing. “My drone is picking up about thirty heat signatures, what's the plan there Finka.”

The way the smaller woman said her codename in her greek accent made her stomach do a little flip. She had to fake clear her throat when she noticed her squadmates, Alibi, in particular, staring at her, smirking and wiggling her brows. “That’s impressive. Mira and Kingdom will have a heyday if they get their hands on it. Crow, connect her comms and let's get ready to move down.” 

After a quick voice test, the three women secured their grappling lines around the thick trunk of the tree and began their way down the cliff. Crow had stayed behind to observe her drone and be the squad’s overwatch. 

Out of the three, Apollo was the one who blended in with the shadows the most, Finka was letting her take the lead, using her dark outfit to her advantage. She lured members of the white masks with the sound of rocks and watched as Finka or Alibi took them out quickly. Following her gadget’s images, carefully treading through the camp. Carefully placing tracking devices that Finka had given her, under vehicles and inside objects. 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t like a video game she had played, the white masks began to notice that some of their comrades had disappeared and stopped responding to radio call-outs.

“Crow, be ready to give us some sniper covering fire, they’re picking upon us.”

“Understood Finka.”

They continued their plan for another minute or two before Apollo stalled her movements as she saw a white mask sneak up behind the red-haired woman, she wouldn’t be able to contact her in time, she had to make the choice to give themselves away in order to save Finka. She raised her rifle, aiming down her sights, taking only a glance at the man with the white mask before pulling the trigger and alerting the base. Finka turned around quickly as the man fell back. 

“Thanks, Apollo! Crow, Alibi, we’ve been spotted.” Finka says over the coms, standing up and running over to Apollo, taking cover as a bunch of men run out from the cave entrance. She hears the smaller woman hum. “What’s up Apollo?” 

“Well, as I said earlier, My gadget works better inside a confined space of sorts… so it didn't account for the people inside the cave…” 

Finka cursed harshly, making Apollo flinch back, raising an arm to cover her head. It stunned Finka for a moment before she lightly put her hand on the woman's wrist and lowered it. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay.” 

Finka’s calm voice assured Apollo that she was telling the truth. The nice moment was interrupted by bullets passing over their heads. Apollo clutched her rifle closer, taking deep breaths as she waited for the suppressing fire to die down. She could hear Crow and Alibi shooting themselves. She looked over to Finka, who was still staring at her with a new look in her eyes. “What’s the plan?”

Finka turns to look at the situation and thinks for a second. “I and the girls will hold them, you sneak in behind them and look for the file.”

“What Is it that I'm looking for?” 

“Its a USB drive. It holds important data on North American security and the members of parliament, there's no time to explain how they got it, just make sure they don't have any copies.”

Apollo nods in understanding. “Earlier, Alibi asked why I bother with the goggles and mask. I was too ashamed to say it then, but with you, I feel safe… I wear a mask and goggles so my enemies and my teammates don’t see when I'm fucking terrified… just like in this moment.”

Finka wanted to say something but couldn’t find words, she just watched as she stood up and started to move, trekking around the overturned items and towards the entrance. “Crow, Alibi. Get their attention away from the entrance! We gotta get Apollo in.”

Apollo crouches nearby, watching and waiting for the perfect timing when it presents itself, she runs straight for the entrance, running down the dirt tunnel. She dips into a pocket as more white masks run up the corridor, waiting for them to pass. Apollo continues down the path, searching for anything close to where a USB drive would be. She really wishes that Finka was with her. The taller woman seemed to bring calm to situations like this. 

The last possible location in the self-made base was exactly where a USB would be located because of course. Thankfully the room was empty so she began searching the area, overturning items, dropping things on the ground. She finally finds something she suspects is it as she finds a laptop tucked into a crack in the wall, she carefully pulled it out, a USB drive inside of it. She smirks to herself as she opens the laptop, eyes scanning over the files attached to it. Definitely the USB she’s looking for. She safely ejects it from the lap and slams the laptop down on the ground. She slips the USB drive into the pocket in her shirt and begins to open the bag that Crow had handed her. C4. Carefully, she placed them around the room. On the desks, on the walls and the floors. Nothing was going to survive in this room. She dropped the bag on the ground and turned to leave. Stopping as a man stood there. He pulled the white masks off his face and gave her a smirk.

“Thought you were slick, didn’t you?” His thick greek accent gave her chills as she stepped forward. “I thought we dealt with your squad back at that old temple… but it looks like I have to do everything.” 

It takes a few seconds before her eyes widen as she recognizes him. 

“Why… Why are you doing this?”

“That’s none of your business little girl.” He sneers, “You shouldn’t have ever been considered for the position in EKAM. That position was mine! And you took it from me. A fucking little bitch.”

Apollo takes a step back, hands tightening on her rifle. “Basil… you resigned from the program, what are you even on about?”

“Resigned?! A LIE!” He shouted, stepping forward. “THEY FORCED ME OUT FOR YOU. A WIMP, A WEAK PATHETIC ROACH!”

He stepped towards her and she froze, letting him punch her hard in the jaw, she collapsed onto the ground, gun sliding across the floor and the way she landed knocked the radio off her shoulder and onto the floor, opening her comms for the group to hear. 

“You pathetic bitch, can’t even stop a punch. You just took it.” Basil growls, pulling her over and sitting on top of her. Using his one hand to restrain her arms above her head, his other goes to her throat, squeezing hard. “Please, do struggle. I’m going to enjoy every second of this, every second is going to pleasure me as I defile you, maybe then you’ll learn your place, you weak fool.”

His hand moves to tug at her belt and her pants, exposing her hips. She squirmed and tried to fight his weight but she couldn’t. He was right, she was weak. The panic was setting in as he pulled down his trousers and exposed himself, a wicked grin on his lips. Apollo closes her eyes as she fights his weight, the only thing she can think of, for whatever reason, was the green eyes of the Belarusian woman, she opened her mouth and screamed, “FINKA!”

~~

The firefight finally came to end as the last member of the white masks fell to the ground hard, making a sicking crunch. Alibi almost collapsed from exhaustion, but put her weight on the side of the enemy's vehicle. Finka let out a relieved sigh as she gave a thumbs up towards Crow. 

“Should we go and help Apollo?” Alibi asks with a slight yawn, as she said it she spoke over the radio, confirming that she retrieved the USB and is now placing the C4. “Never mind, she is useful.”

Finka shrugged as she started to inspect the bodies. Pulling off their masks, feeling a bit sad at the youth of some. Their radios crackled and they began hearing struggling.

“Apollo?” Finka asks but gets no reply as a voice, a manly voice starts getting loud, saying words that began to make her blood boil. It was only when she heard the greek girl scream her name in such panic that she remembered her nanobots and she activated them and began to run towards the entrance. 

~~

As Basil was about to force himself inside of her, Apollo felt a surge of adrenaline, a surge of strength and she somehow kicked him off of her, she was quick to roll to her feet, pulling her pants up. Anger and tears in her eyes as Basil smirked, putting himself back into his pants. 

“Well, looks like you got some fight inside you don’t you bitch.” He raised his fists and stood in a fighting stance. “Then come! Fight me in hand to hand combat. You couldn’t win then and you won’t now.”

Apollo pulled out her pistol from its holster and firing. Meeting its target of Basil’s gut. He fell back to the ground with a grunt. “Coward!”

“I don’t have to prove myself to you.” Apollo says, possibly the calmest she's been this entire day, “After all, I made EKAM and you didn’t.” 

She turned and retrieved her rifle and radio from the ground, “Finka, I'm okay, I’m on my way out.” looking back at Basil, losing blood fast, anger rising in his face.

“You won’t leave here alive… you didn’t think… We had a contingency plan? This place is filled with deadly smoke that will burn you alive on the inside.” He pulled something from his vest, Apollo instantly knew it was a trigger, she took a step towards him. Basil smirked and clicked the trigger, an explosion popped off behind her and he began to laugh hysterically. “YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT OUT BITCH!”

Apollo sprinted past him and down the hall grabbing at her radio, “LEAVE THE TUNNEL, HE’S RELEASING POISONOUS GAS, LEAVE!”

The nanobots still in her system, giving her a bit more adrenaline as she full-on sprints down the long tunnel, she mistakenly looked back  and saw the sight of thick yellow smoke catching up with her, and she swore she could hear Basil still laughing as she continued to run. As the light from outside came into view, she could see the smoke pass her. She held her breath for as long as she could before her lungs burst, crying for oxygen and she tripped and went tumbling forward. She tried to stand up but she couldn't bear the pain from the smoke. She scratched at her neck, fear welling up in her eyes as she tried to crawl forward towards the light. Her eyes closed.

_ “Reach out my child, one more push, reach for my angel’s hand”  _

A voice rang out in her head and she listened, stretching out her left arm, hand reaching for something in the smoke.

It was Finka. 

Finka, fear in her eyes, gripped her hand and pulled her up to her feet, picking her up into bridal style. She turned and ran out through the smoke and into the open. She continued to run until she reached the enemy vehicle on the other side of the lot. Collapsing onto the ground, lightly resting the smaller girl down. She pulled off Apollo's helmet and balaclava, tossing it as far as possible before removing her own mask and placing it over Apollo’s face and activating the air. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”

Alibi and Crow stand behind her, worry in their own eyes, watching silently as Finka begins to panic. A few seconds passed and Apollo’s eyes shot open, hands grasping at the mask, she was beginning to hyperventilate. 

“Apollo you need to calm down!” Finka says calmly, pulling the small woman into arms, “Breathe slowly. Can you do that for me? Breathe slowly, please.” 

Apollo let her hands drop from the mask, tears in her eyes as she listened to the woman's voice, staring at her the entire time. They stay like that for a minute before Finka takes the mask off. “You okay?”

Apollo nods slowly as she takes in the fresh air, her throat still burns as she points to the canteen. When it gets handed to her she chugs it back before pouring the rest over her face and dropping it onto the ground. “I got.. I got the files.” Apollo pulls the silver USB out from her pocket and holds it up with a smile. Finka lets out a short laugh and takes it. “Can… Can I go home now?”

“Yea, you sure can,” Finka says as Alibi and Crow come over to help the both of them to their feet. Thankfully the smoke wasn’t like the kind used back at Bartlett university, it didn’t stain their clothes and it didn't linger too much. Dissipating as soon as it reached the fresh air outside of the tunnel. 

They returned to the cliff and repealed up, Finka holding Apollo tightly, as the smaller girl was still weak from the trauma she just experienced. Carrying her to the jeep and carefully putting her down. “Let's get home, really craving one of Ammerati’s meals.”

“Oh, hell yea.” Alibi agrees, dropping down into the passenger's seat. “I really could go for her linguine chicken amatriciana.”

“Fuck, that shit really is good.” Crow agrees, “I cannot wait.”

When Finka gets in beside, Apollo leans over and drops her head onto her shoulder and falls asleep, Alibi looks back with a small smile. “You guys cute.”

“It’s a thought… one that will never be.” Finka says quietly as Crow begins to race down the road.

“I’m sure enough bugging will get Harry to look at her file and recruit her. Her gadget is amazing. Once it gets to Mira and Kingdom’s hands, that thing is going to be invincible.”

“Maybe too you.” Crow says, “It’ll be overpowered.”

“Scared of competition?” 

“After dealing with Kingdom's shield? I don’t even know what competition is.” 

Alibi starts laughing loudly, making Finka smile as she wraps an arm around the smaller woman who is sleeping quietly on her chest.

~~

Finka, Alibi, and Crow stood outside of the office building of EKAM, waiting for a small greek woman to walk outside. 

The Belarusian woman took a breath as her mouth lowered, butterflies erupting inside as she caught a glance of Apollo in casual wear. 

Apollo stopped in front of them, wearing a navy blue leather jacket over a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. “It’s good to see you all again.”

“We wanted to see how you were before we returned to England.” Crow says, “You’ve become an honorary member of Rainbow.”

“For now, soon it’ll be the real thing,” Alibi says with a grin. “You’ll be seeing us real soon.”

“Who knows, maybe. But for now, I’m on sick leave for a few weeks to fully recover from the smoke.” Apollo says softly, “I’m really glad you guys stopped by.” 

The three women smile brightly, Crow nudging Alibi, giving her a signal to give the two of them some space. Alibi smirks, “We’ll give you some time.” Finka gives her a look that makes her laugh as Crow pulls her away.

“She’s a joker that one, isn’t she.” Apollo chuckles as she turns to look at the taller woman. “You saved my life twice Finka. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Dinner.” Finka spits out quickly and embarrassingly needy, making her face go ready. Apollo smiles, stepping forward and going to her tippy toes and kissing Finka on the cheek. 

“I would love to, Finka.”

“It’s Lera.” 

“Okay, Lera.” She repeats, Finka finding that she loves the way she says her name. “You can call me Thaila. And it’s a date.”

Finka smiles brightly at her answer as she looks back at her squadmates who were pretending not to be staring. “I look forward to it, Thaila. But unfortunately, I must catch my flight. I’ll be seeing you.”

“ Antio sas” She says as she watches the tall woman walk towards her friends, looking back once and waving. Apollo watched her until she disappeared out the door, a small smile on her lips.

~~

A month later Apollo took a final look at her apartment living room before closing and locking it for the last time, she handed the keys over to the landlord before heading to the airport. She watched as the sights of Greece passed by her in the backseat of the taxi. She boarded the plane for some of the longest six hours of her life. 

She arrived on the Hereford base eight hours later, the morning sun shining brightly as she sat awkwardly inside the man named “Six” bedroom like an office. He fills up cups with tea and takes a seat across from her. He holds a warm smile as she asks her questions about her life and her interests. Apollo tries to answer but is a bit too shy to really give a real answer. It's only when he asks about her beliefs about the greek gods does she lit up like a light and begins to tell him the story of Pandora and her box. She then finds comfort in his presence and answers questions with confidence.

By the time they finish, there's a knock on the door and a woman steps in, wearing a green slim t-shirt with black cargo pants and sneakers. Her hair pulled into a french braid, and a warm smile on her lips. “You must be Apollo!”

Her voice was like honey and made Apollo feel safe and warm as she reached for her hand and shook it. “I’m Kody Ammerati, though my codename is Kingdom if you really wanna use them.”

“I’m Thaila… Kostas.”

“Thaila Kostas. Beautiful name.” She smiles even more brightly before giving a nod to Harry and leading the woman out of the room. She gave her a small tour of the main living area building. They made a pit stop to the lap so Kody could introduce her to her fiance. 

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Mira says, pulling her in for a hug. Apollo stood still and awkwardly, staring at Kody with wide eyes.

“Babe, don’t think that’s a good… idea.”

Mira pulls back and gives a small smile. “I apologize Apollo, I didn’t mean to overstep.”

“It’s fine… I just don’t know how to react to… comfort?”

Mira looks back at Kody who just kind of stands there, shrugging. “You’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

“I… thank you.”

“No problem,” Mira says returning to her desk. “I haven't had the chance to review your gadget yet but I’m sure it’s amazing.”

“Oh, you don’t really have too…”

“Oh she must and she will.” Kody says walking back over to her, “Elena likes to know what everything is and how it works. Don’t worry, she won’t change anything without letting you know first. Let's go tour everything else tho.” 

Apollo followed her towards the main gym area where three women were hanging out. “Apollo, meet Meghan, on the right. Monika, in the center. And the abominable snowman on the left is Eryka.”

“Hey Kody,” Karhu says, “Fuck you.”

“Love you too.”

Karhu rolls her eyes and returns to lifting weights. Apollo smiles lightly at the interaction, listening in silence as Meghan and Monika introduce themselves properly. 

Kody quickly talks about the small rules that are in place for the gym, such as not pushing yourself too long, putting everything back where it was and so on. The next stop was the dining room where she met a man named Buha. 

“He’s a bastard but we love him.”

“Kiss my ass.” He yells at her. 

“You wouldn’t be able to pay for one of my kisses in a million years.” Kody chuckles as a man named Kelvin and a woman named Iris introduces themselves. Apollo greets them awkwardly looking over at Kody. 

Kody notices it and is quick to lead her from the room and down the hall, letting the silence calm her a bit as Alibi comes walking backward down the hall, talking to her girlfriend, Frost. Turning when the Chinese woman says Kody’s name.

Alibi stops in her tracks and makes an awkward stance, pointing at Apollo, making Kody think of the spiderman meme. “APOLLO!”

Apollo smiles as Alibi runs to her and gives her a hug, Kody moves to stop it but stops when she sees Apollo return it. 

“It is good to see you again Alibi!” 

“It's Aria, please.” The Italian says as she pulls back from the hug, turning to Frost. “This is Apollo! The woman who saved my life!”

Frost walks up and holds a hand out. “Thank you for saving my idiot.” 

“Aye.”

“No problem,” Apollo says, still grinning a bit. “It was quite an experience to see her in a fight.”

“I’m quite sexy, I know.” Alibi agrees, putting her arm around Frost, “Unfortunately, I am taken.” 

“Ah, a real shame.” Apollo jokes, her grin rising. 

“C’mon babe, Meghan is waiting for you.” Frost says, tugging her along, “It was nice meeting you Apollo!”

Apollo waved them goodbye and followed Kody once again to the small courtyard where she recognized another face. “Crow.”

The brunette looks up from her book and gives a little smile. “It’s about time you showed up Apollo.”

“I’m glad to see you well.” 

“Likewise, how are you liking London so far?”

Apollo shrugs, “I prefer Greece.”

“Don’t we all.” Both Crow and Kody said in union, making the three laugh. 

“All that’s left is your room and then the trip to see the doc,” Kody says, walking back to the door. “Crow, Think Meghan wants you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, she’s in the gym with Karhu and Monika.”

“Thank you.” Crow closes her book and jumps off the couch and walks past the two of them, half sprinting down the path they came from.

“She is dating that Meghan person?” Kody nods as she leads them through a door towards the dorms hall. “Is everyone here… gay?”

“Pretty much?” Kody says as a question. “I mean, a good chunk of the women are. Think Hibana is bisexual, she’s dating jack for some reason. Zofia is hella straight, she lives off base so she's not really here all the time. Clash said she doesn’t really think about relationships or feelings so that's her own thing. Um, I think Nomad and Ember are dating but they haven’t said anything.”

“Jesus…”

“There’s also Ash and IQ, Twitch and Caveira, Buha and Lion, Kali and Karhu.” Kody scratches the back of her neck. “There is a lot of in house dating, which tends to happen when you spend so much time with people. Oh! Ela and ying, they’ve been on and off a lot lately but Ela will cut you if she sees anyone talking to her in any way other than friendly so… be careful haha”

Kody stops in front of a door. “This is your own room, you got Ying on your left and Frost on your right, don’t be afraid to bug them for anything. Kody opens the door and steps aside for Apollo, who steps inside. 

She notices her boxes lined up on the wall, her room was almost the size of her living room back in Greece which surprised her, she expected the room to be like the small dorm room back when she was in the Greek military. She had her own microwave and minifridge, as well as a small flat screen tv. She looked back at Kody. “This is… too much.”

“Everyone has one.” Kody shrugs, “This is your living quarters, you gotta be comfortable and shouldn't be forced to interact with everyone. Especially when you got edgelords Eryka and Danut roaming around at half-past midnight.”

This makes Apollo chuckle lightly as she turns back to look at Kody. “I love it, thanks.”

Kody shrugs, taking full credit. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

Apollo rolls her eyes at this and walks back outside. “Let’s get this Doc evaluation over with shall we?”

Kody shrugs, “You’re the first to actually want to get it done with.” but leads her towards the medbay, she talks about the things they path, explaining little things here and there. Every picture has a memory and story she says, though she doesn’t have the right passion to explain them all. 

Kody opens the door to the medbay and leads her to a room. “Don’t worry, Gustave is really nice and kind. He’s like an annoying older brother.”

She turns to leave but stops when Apollo calls her name. “Thank you for today… for being patient with me and stuff.”

“That’s not a problem Thaila. I enjoyed spending time with you today, I think we’re going to be good friends.” The smile Kody gave made Apollo be at ease even more than she already was. “If you need anything, or just want to hang out after this, I’ll be down in R&D with Elena.”

“Okay, see you Kody.”

Kody gave her a wave as she walked out of the room, disappearing down the hall.

Doc arrived a few moments later, a giant grin on his face. He did all the standard medical evals that she was used to back in EKAM. Doc was patient with her silence and didn’t push her when she shrugged at questions she didn’t want to answer. He finished his evaluations and dismissed her.

Apollo walked out of the medbay awkwardly, walking in no particular directions because she truly forgot where to go. She walked for a few minutes, just admiring the pictures and plaques on the wall. Reading each description. 

“I heard there was a familiar face roaming these walls.” Apollo turned and looked at the owner of the voice, grinning from ear to ear, the taller woman returning the smile. “You still owe me a date.”

They meet halfway and Apollo just falls into her, hugging her tightly. Finka gently picks her up off the ground. “I missed you dearly, short stack.”

“I missed you to  ángelos,” Apollo says softly, looking up at Finka. “It is odd that I missed your presence?”

“I don’t think so.” She answers, a sappy smile on her lips. “I also miss your presence.”

“Get a room!” Alibi screams from down the hall, a giant grin on her face as Frost is dragging her away towards dorms. 

“Say, you wanna hang out tonight? We can order take out and just relax, watch a movie or something?” Finka asks nervously.

“Well, I guess I can, though I got nothing in my room set up, so we’ll have to use your room, hope you don’t mind.” 

Finka grins, “It would be an honour to have you in my room tonight. As of right now, I have a few things to take care of for Doc, but I’ll find you after, okay?”

“That sounds good, Lera.” 

Finka’s cheeks start to redden at how good her name sounds in that Greek accent. “I’ll see you soon Thaila.”

“Lera?”

“Yes?”

“How do I get to the living room again?”

Finka lets out a laugh at the sheepish look that the smaller girl has. “Don’t worry, there are still times that I get lost on base, but I’ll walk with you as both our locations are in the same direction.”

They make small talk on their way, it's mainly Finka asking how the last month was, and the weather of Greece and if she missed home. Apollo answered each question with a smile, always looking straight at her. 

When they arrive at the living room, Finka doesn’t want to part but she says a quick ‘see ya later’ and Apollo watches her walk away, starting as her ass, admiring how good it looks in jeans. 

“You’re so gay.” She jumps slightly at the voice, turning to see Buha drinking a juice box. “I mean, You guys are cute, go for it.” Apollo feels her face go red as she walks towards the fridge, making him laugh. “I like you.”

~~

Apollo hadn’t been paying attention to the movie for a long while now, she couldn’t stop staring at the woman, basking in her beauty. It was only now that she really looked at the scar, noticing it how it went from her brow to down to the top of her cheek. It looks gnarly and Apollo thinks it the most beautiful feature about her.

She also feels bad for not actually watching the movie even though Finka said it was her favorite of all time and insisted she watches it for the first though she was sure she would be made to watch it again, multiple times. 

Apollo was scared she might be pushing whatever this was, but she also thought the longing for the taller woman would fade over the month where they made no contact at all but it didn't and it clearly didn't for the other woman. She bit her lip, she wanted to be brave and, as Buha described it, ‘Shoot my shot’ but she's scared that she’ll regret it, that Finka will push her back and avoid her like a plague. But when the redhead turns and makes eye contact, giving off that damn grin like back in Greece, Apollo knew what she wanted.

She took a breath and leaned forward, kissing the taller woman deeply. She felt her moan into, immediately biting at Apollo’s lip. When they pull apart, Apollo resting her forehead against the taller girl, she smiles softly.

“Hi,” Finka says, her voice a bit husky from the kiss. “Thought I'd never get to experience that… Kind of want more…”

Apollo grins, “Then take it.”

Finka grins at the challenge, pulling her back down for a second kiss, as it deepens, she wraps an arm around the smaller woman's waist, picking her up and changing positions so that she is on top of her. Apollo wraps an arm around the back of Finka’s head as they continue to deepen the kiss. Finka’s hand traced up her leg, pulling it up so it sits at her hip as she lets her weight drop a bit on top of the greek woman. At some point the taller woman’s hand slips under the shirt of the woman underneath her and just explores the skin, feeling how soft it was under her touch. They stay in this moment of bliss for what feels like hours. 

When they break apart, Apollo stares up at her in awe, her hands tracing the redhead lips. “I really enjoy your lips.”

“Yours aren’t bad either,” Finka says softly as she kisses her jaw, leaving small bites along her neck. “I’ve spent many days wondering what they tasted like.”

“And what do they taste like?”

“Raspberries”

“I’ll be sure to eat more raspberries then…”

Finka laughs softly before taking her lips again, making Apollo moan a bit loud, which in turn only made Finka do it again. The smaller girl pulls back to say something, only to yawn in her face. “Sorry…”

Finka looks down at her with a bit of awe before giving her another peck on the lips. “Let's get you to bed.”

“Mmm okay.” She says, moaning quietly at the loss of contact from Finka’s body, making the woman smirk down at her as she pulled Apollo to her feet. 

Apollo moves slightly towards Finka’s room door only to be stopped by the taller woman pulling her back towards her. She grins at the surprise on the younger girl's face, “You can stay here tonight… unless you’d like to go back to your room.”

“No, no. I’d like that.”

Finka turns off the tv, locking them into the darkness of the room and she squeezes her hand as she leads her to the bed. Apollo crawls under the bedsheets, watching from the darkness as Finka pulls her hoodie off, leaving her in a t-shirt. She crawls into bed beside the smaller woman, she kisses her again. Apollo turns around and lets herself be pulled into being the small spoon. Finka burying her face into the back of her neck. Apollo fell asleep quite fast in the muscular woman's warmth, a smile on her face. 


	2. You remind me just how good it can get

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apollo does her first training sim and Finka tells her something important

About two weeks after finally settling into life on the base, it finally became time for Apollo’s first simulation training. She sat awkwardly in the locker room with about sixty others, Harry standing in front of everyone. He was saying something to the team but she had zoned out, staring down at the floor. A nudge to her side gets her back into reality, looking up at Harry who is talking about rearranging teams.

“With the new addition to our team, I figured that we would switch up dynamics again.”

“Please say you're breaking up Kody and Elena!” Someone speaks up earning a chuckle amongst their peers as the small Latina woman rolls her eyes. “Just because you can’t compete against us doesn’t mean you have to be salty Jordan.”

Harry chuckles lightly at everyone’s interactions as he waves his hand to quiet everyone down. “Alright, alright, Settle down. The teams have been made fairly, though Amaru, you will be a part of two teams until further notice. Now, for today's first match… Finka, you’ll be team captain. You got Blitz, Crow, Kali, and Buck.”

Blitz and Buck fist-bumped each other at the news as the rest just looked straight ahead, not sure if they’re happy or not. 

“Defense! Valkyrie, you are the team leader!”

Crow and Valkyrie exchange glances, the blonde smirking. 

“You’ll be leading Rook, Mute Karhu and the newbie, Apollo!” 

Apollo turned and looked over at Finka who was still focusing on Harry. A hand landed heavy on her shoulder, she looked up and saw the tall Finish woman towering over her. She gave an awkward smile at the woman. “Let’s do our best.” 

Karhu raised a brow but couldn’t fight the small smile that forced its way to her lips. “You’re adorable.”

She opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by Harry speaking again. “I’ll announce the next set of teams after the match. You all know the rules. Teams, to your respective lockers to debate strategy and dress up the rest of you, too the stands!”

Apollo stands up, following beside Karhu towards the defense locker room, she looks back once more, finding Finka’s eyes. The redhead gave her a small smile as Apollo disappeared behind doors. 

Apollo reaches her stall and begins to pull on her equipment. Staying in silence as her team begins to speak over each other with ideas and plans. The door opens behind her, Karhu huffs loudly beside her. 

“What do you want Kody, can’t you see we’re busy?”

“I’m not here for you, zip it.” Karhu recoils back in a bit of shock at the woman’s commanding tone. Watching as she approaches Apollo. “Elena and I finished our examination on your gadgets. We also upgraded the stealth tech to Echo’s current stage. It’s all ready to go.”

Apollo gratefully takes the gadgets from the taller woman and holds them to her chest, “Thank you Kody.”

Kody gives a light punch to the woman's shoulder. “Don’t be nervous, you’ll be fine. Besides, Karhu will make sure nothing happens to you. Right Eryka?” Karhu gives her a look that screams ‘I’m going to kill you’ which only makes Kody grin brighter. “Have a good match guys, hope you guys come up with a good team name!”

“Team name?” Apollo asks shyly, looking up at Karhu. Karhu sighs, running her hand down her face. “I hope it’s something cool…”

“As the newbie, you can name the team!” Rook says, giving her a thumbs up and a big smile. “I bet you’ll come up with something amazing!”

Apollo looks down at her gadgets, placing them into her bag. “I sure hope so, I don’t want it to be too bad.”

“Can’t be as bad as what Eryka named her team when she joined.” Mute jokes, a giant grin on his as she shoots him a glare. 

“I didn’t actually think that they were fucking serious about me naming the team.” Karhu huffs, Apollo stares up at her, a look of innocence in her eyes as she asks what she named it. Karhu really didn’t want to say it but broke at the face she was making. “Noodles gang.”

Apollo lets out a small laugh, which makes Karhu close her eyes and smile. “I’ll try not to make it that bad then.”

Valkyrie gives her a warm smile as she walks over, taking the smaller woman’s head in her hands. “Don’t doubt yourself! We believe in you.”

“Thank you Meghan,” Apollo says quietly as Valkyrie called the team together. They spent the next ten minutes or so coming up with strategies for the location they were given on base. Karhu offers Apollo ideas where to place Ikaros, laughing when she asks her to put them up high for her. When a buzzer sounds through the room, the team stands up from the benches and walks out of the room, Apollo racing to catch up with them. 

They stop just outside of the doors of the building where Harry and Mozzie were chatting. The door behind them opens and the attacking them comes out and meets them, grins on their faces. It only dawns on her now how tall everyone was compared to her. They towered over her, her breaths became faster and slower. Hands came to her shoulders, giving her a small squeeze. It was Finka. In all of her beauty, staring down at her, a soft smile and bright green eyes. “You’ll do great!”

Just like nothing happened, her breaths returned to normal and the sound returned to her ears, watching as Finka turned and walked out of the building with her team. Mozzie waves a hand in front of her face. “What’s up Max?”

“Just wondering if you came up with a team name.”

“Max, we literally just became a team,” Valkyrie says, giving him a lite shove. 

“I was thinking… Andromeda.” Apollo says shyly. 

“Andromeda?” Mozzie says scratching his chin. “It’s good. Twenty times better than Noodles gang.”

Karhu grumbled something under her mask as she turned and kicked open the door, Rook laughed, picking up his bag from the ground and following his teammates out the door. Mozzie pats the woman on the back and wishes her luck as she races after her teammates. 

The Hereford simulation building made chills run up Apollo’s back as she followed her team up to the second floor. They stood still awkwardly for a minute before a buzzer went off and Mozzie’s voice ran out over a loud intercom. 

“Prep phase ladies and gents! 45 seconds! We have the attackers, The Lunatics versus the defenders, Team Andromeda!”

Rook must’ve cracked a joke because the team started laughing, making Apollo zone back in. Karhu nudges her, “Give me one of your gadgets and I’ll go set it up.”

Apollo nods quickly, slinging her back off her shoulder and taking the two gadgets from her bag, handing it off to the taller woman who immediately runs out of the objective. Apollo pulls her backpack back on and walks towards the second bomb objective and lays down, carefully placing Ikaros underneath the bed and then activates it. She runs over to the corner of the first boob room, ducking behind the bunk bed and checks her gadget. The one she placed loads up perfectly, switching to the second. It takes a second but blinks on and shows the kitchen perfectly. “Good placement Karhu.”

“Thanks, hold the fort Apollo.” 

“I’ll give it my best!” 

Another buzzer goes off followed by Mozzie announcing the start of the simulation. Apollo flicked through the cameras set up, sending call-outs over comms. It only took forty seconds before Karhu snuck up behind Buck and shot him multiple times in the back. The watch on Apollo’s wrist vibrated lightly as the numbers changed to 4 v 5 with the remaining time. 

Karhu runs down the hall towards the kitchen. Crouching down behind the cabinet and reloading her weapon. 

“Karhu, there are two bodies nearby,” Apollo calls out over the comms. She stands up as she hears the familiar sound of Blitz’s shield. She smirks to herself, bracing for his rush. “Behind you!”

Karhu flips around a little too late as she sees her girlfriend. She tries to raise her weapon but Kali shoots her hard in the chest. Knocking her back hard into the cabinet. It takes Karhu a second before she catches her breath. Kali walks over and crouches above her. She gave Karhu’s head a soft pat. “Better luck next time love.”

Karhu mutters something under her breath that makes Kali chuckle. Crow walks into the room, smirking at the fallen Finish women. Karhu flips her off with one hand while the other one rubs the spot on her chest where Kali’s pellet smacked her hard.

Mute was the next to go. He tries to sneak up on Crow, who was on her drone but got shot in the back by Kali. He actually falls on top of Crow from the impact, apologizing as he rolls off her and proceeds to play dead. Crow laughs lightly at his actions and thanks, Kali. Together the two walk up the backstairs to the second floor. Valkyrie watches from the room to their right, hiding behind the broken bookcase, waiting to see if anymore followed, when decided it was, she crept up from behind, she shot Kali and moved to aim at her girlfriend who had already turned quickly and shot her in the stomach. Valkyrie fell back and gave a dramatic death. Crow rolled her eyes at this as the watch vibrates twice. 3 v 2 with less than two minutes remaining. 

On the other side of the building, Blitz charged at Rook blocking all of his bullets as Finka ran up behind him and shot him multiple times. Rook smiles at them, giving them a thumbs up. “That was a good push guy's!”

“Thanks Julien,” Finka says, tapping his shoulder. It was a 3 v 1. And all that was left was Apollo. Finka sighed and said over the comm, “Let’s go for the plant. I don’t want to embarrass Apollo too much.” 

Crow snuck into bombsite B, crouched behind the bed and pulled out the diffuser and began to plant. Apollo’s gadget beeped and she pulled up her wrist, checking the room's symmetric. One person. Cautiously, she crouched towards the room, checking each corner and angle as she spot’s Crow. She hits her once in the gut as she was in the middle of the plant. It wasn’t enough to take her out but enough to knock her down to the downed state. Crow turned and looked over at her with a smirk. Apollo moved forward to finish her off when shots ran by her head. She recoiled back into a safe space and waited for a second.

Finka activated her nanobots which allowed Crow to resume her movements. She moved to another spot in the room, one where Apollo couldn't see and started to plant again, this time she managed to get it off.

Apollo looked at her watch and noticed the Crow had returned to her feet, cursing as soon as Mozzie spoke over the intercom that the defuser was planted. She fired a few shots at Crow who returned fire. Apollo turned and ran back into the loom, no plan really. She ran towards the door and turned left. She hoped she could flank but stopped in her tracks when she saw Finka on the stairs. The redhead fired shots, shots she should have made. Apollo fell back and turned to run back to the first bomb site. 

When she turned she was met with Blitz who was coming at her like a steam engine who looked like he had no intention of stopping. Apollo moved to put an arm in front of her to give herself some protection as he slammed into her and sent her flying back into the wall hard with a sickening crunch. 

It was like slow motion for Finka, she watched Apollo come into view, she fired her gun, missing on purpose. She watched as she panicked and turned to run back, only to stop then proceed to be hit hard by Blitz. She flew back and hit the wall hard. “THAILA!”

Finka stood up and sprinted towards her, Blitz stood there, a bit of confusion and annoyance as she crouched down beside her. “Thaila.” 

Finka placed her hand on her cheek and turned her head up and towards her, she looked up at her with a dazed look. Crow ran up from behind as the defuser finished and the sim ended. “What happened?”

“This jackass barrelled into her and sent her flying!” Finka was angry, Crow had never seen her angry. 

“It’s not my fault she weighs nothing. I couldn’t account for that!”

“You shouldn’t be hitting people like that in the first place!” Finka screamed at him as Apollo fell over to her side. “Thaila!”

Crow looked over at Blitz, something riling up in her chest as he snickered at the situation. She raised her gun and shot him in the head. He fell back onto his and stared at her. “Sorry, couldn’t account for your head being there.”

Karhu and the others ran up behind Blitz, stopping when they saw Apollo on the ground. “What happened?” 

Crow noticed the anger in her eyes as she stepped closer, she pointed at Blitz. “Ask this dipshit.”

Karhu grabbed Blitz by the vest and yanked him to his feet. “What the fuck are you thinking! You could’ve killed her.”

Blitz scoffed as he gripped at the woman's arm. “This is a part of our job, she should’ve been prepared for it.” 

“Prepared?” Karhu practically growled. “You have eight inches and forty-five pounds on her. It doesn’t matter if this is our job, she is still small. You could have killed her.”

“If she can’t handle it, she shouldn't have joined team Rainbow.” 

Apollo tried to sit up and say she was fine but got dizzy. She looked up at Finka, squinted, then threw up. 

“Shit, she has a concussion,” Finka says, rubbing Apollo’s back as she continued to let everything out of her stomach. 

Karhu hand tightened on his vest, a wave of anger flowed through her chest as she stared at her new friend, she turned and looked back at Blitz. In a vast movement, she head-butted him hard, breaking his nose. She let go of his vest as he dropped to the ground, blood spurting out of his nose. If it wasn’t for Kali grabbing her arm to pull her back, she would’ve been on top of him laying punches into him.

Finka wipes the vomit off Apollo's chin, as the small woman fights to keep her eyes open. “Let’s get you down to Doc okay?”

Apollo mumbles something and lets Finka pick her up. 

As they left the building, Harry jogs out to them, “What happened?”

“That idiot Elias happened.” Finka spat out as she brushed passed the man and towards the base, the others following behind.

Harry sighed as he saw Blitz walking out, blood running down his face as he held his nose. “It’s not my fault!” 

“Yes, it fucking was!” Karhu screams as she starts back towards the german man. 

“Fuck off Eryka!” He screams back, “You weren’t even there you bitch.”

That seemed to only make her madder as she picked up the pace. 

Harry moved to stand between them, screaming at them both. He somehow manages to calm them both down through Karhu is still staring daggers in too at the man. Harry doesn’t account for Buha, who comes racing up the path and tackles Blitz, immediately throwing punches at the man. Harry tries to break them apart but gets knocked back. He looks to Karhu who is watching the scene unfold with amusement. 

“Karhu!” Harry yelled. 

She let out a sigh and walked over and picked Buha off the German with ease, holding him back as Blitz rolled to his feet, screaming in German.

“Enough!” Harry yells, anger flowing off of him, it was enough to make even Karhu step back. “Any more of this nonsense and all three of you will be suspended! Elias go and get yourself looked at then meet me in my office. Karhu, Buha just… I’m glad you guys have befriended Apollo but please, calm down.” Harry brushed past them and back towards the building leaving the three operators in silence.

~~

Finka sat beside Apollo, holding an ice pack to the back of her head as Doc shines a line in her eyes. Apollo flinching back each time he got anyway clear. He sighs lightly and gives Finka a nod to confirm the concussion. Doc turned and walked to the medicine cabinet, entering the password, grabbing something and closing the door, returning to the women. He handed the bottle to Finka. “Here’s acetaminophen, you already know the drill. Just get lots of sleep Thaila.”

Apollo nods as she stands up off the table. “Thanks, Doc.”

Doc nods and looks at Finka, “When she's asleep, come back and talk with me please.”

Finka gave him a nod and followed her out of the office and began walking towards Apollo’s room, stopping when she noticed that Apollo wasn’t following. “Thaila?”

“You think that we can go to your room?” Apollo asks quietly, “Doc said I would have to be woken every hour… it’d be easier if I was with you. But I understand if you don’t.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Finka smiles walking back towards her, she wraps an arm around her waist as they walk slowly. “You sure you don’t want me to carry you?”

Apollo nods slowly as she fights a yawn. “Thanks though.”

They took five minutes to walk to her office and as soon as they entered the room and met the bed Apollo fell asleep. Finka smiled as she pulled the covers over her. She already knew what the conversation was going to be about and didn’t want to hear it but she went back to Doc’s office anyway.

When she entered the room again, she was greeted by Doc, Kody, and Buha. “Three of you huh.”

“Lera, don’t be like that,” Kody says leaning against the wall. “You know we mean well. Me and Gustave anyway.”

Buha shot her a look, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Apollo has become a close friend of mine lately, so I don’t need you fucking with her.”

“How sweet.” Buha takes a step towards her, and she holds her hands up. “I assumed you were the reason she’d disappear at three am then return smelling like a bakery.”

Buha squints at the truth, trying to brush off the comment about the bakery. “We both can’t sleep at night so we hang out and play games or something, it’s none of your business really. Also, ‘return’?”

“Yes. She likes to stay in my room most nights.” Finka says, a slight blush to her face. “We have grown closer since she’s arrived, I’m assuming that's why you dragged me here?”

“Yea, I suppose,” Doc says, sitting back in his chair. “You have to tell her if this thing becomes more… serious.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Kody asks sincerely, “Because I can already tell you’re second-guessing everything about your feelings.”

Lera looks down at the floor, unsure of what to say because Kody was right. Half right anyway. 

Buha lets out a heavy sigh, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Thaila really likes you. She can already tell that you’re hiding something… and she knows you’ll tell her when you are ready but she can’t stand to make a move if there isn’t that could hurt her. So if you feel the same way about her… if you want to be with her, tell her because she deserves the world.” He turns to leave the room, stopping halfway out, “If you hurt her, I’ll never forgive you.”

Finka bit her lip, looking down at her hands. “If you’ll excuse me.” 

“We’re here if you want to talk, Lera.” 

“Thank you, Kody.”

When Finka returns to her room, she sits down on the couch, her head in her hands. Thoughts were banging around inside her head. She wanted to tell Apollo everything but she’s terrified of how she’ll react. She couldn’t handle another rejection. She hears shuffling behind her. Apollo is rubbing her eyes as she walks over, looking so god damn cute it makes Finka’s stomach flip. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I missed you.”

Finka stares at the woman before her, the incredibly small woman who pushed her way into her thoughts, into her life so easily as she did stealing one of her sweaters. She was madly in love with her. Finka looked down at her hands and Apollo crouched down, taking them into her own, looking up at her. “Lera?”

Finka looks up at her, tears running down her cheeks before she can even open her mouth to speak. Apollo takes one hand and wipes away the tears before resting her hand on her cheek. “What’s wrong? You can tell me.”

“It’s about me…”

“I’m all ears.”

“I… I was born in the irradiated city of Gomel in the Byelorussian SSR three years after the Chernobyl disaster and I grew up around children already suffering from birth defects as a result of the nuclear disaster, by nine I was diagnosed with neuropathy, which includes the slow degeneration of muscles and the loss of sensation in the limbs and extremities and whatnot.”

Finka looks at Apollo, trying to find any kind of sign of fear or anger, anything that would make her stop but all she saw was love and support. Finka wiped her eyes with her right hand as she continued.

“My diagnosis was the realization of my fears, so I was encouraged by doctors to be physically active, so I would push myself even harder, determined to keep my body in great condition to weather the neuropathy. I figured that I couldn't be sick if she stayed healthy. You know I went to school for biology and such… I found a sort of remission but lately, it seems to be slowly growing resistant to treatment and I’m trying new treatment while keeping it a secret, but only Doc and Kody know, and I guess you now and now I find myself so desperate to get better and fix myself because I want all the time in the world with you.”

There’s a bit of silence after she’s done explaining the jest of her life she's expecting Apollo to leave, that she'll be too much of a burden but Instead Apollo moves into her, hugging her tightly for a minute, she can feel herself shaking against the smaller woman, fighting the tears in her eyes. 

When Apollo finally pulls back from the hug, she stares a moment into Finka’s eyes before leaning in and kissing her softly.

"Okay, how can I help?"

Finka shrugs at the question because she truly doesn’t know. “For right now… Just be here.”

“I can do that,” Apollo says standing up, trying to pull the redhead up with her, it makes Finka laugh a bit. “For right now, I want you to hold me tightly because my head is fucking killing me.”

Finka smirks and picks her up, earning a surprised yelp as she's brought to the bed. Finka lightly drops her onto the bed, crawling in beside her, laying down on her back as Apollo practically lays on top of her, resting her head on the redhead’s chest she falls asleep the sounds of her heartbeat. Finka doesn’t know how long she lay there, tracing her fingers against the smaller woman’s back, listening to the ceiling fan as it did its thing. She felt the weight of the world leave her shoulders now that she had told Apollo everything and the fact that she didn’t leave her, that she didn’t recoil in anger about being told so late made her even happier. Finka had been so afraid to let herself get close to anyone again, afraid that she’d be left again so it felt like she finally came to the surface for air when Apollo stayed. 

She didn’t know how long they stayed there in that position, but some time afterward she could’ve sworn she heard Apollo whisper ‘I think I’m in love with you Lera.’ and she could’ve sworn her heart burst inside of her chest because god damn, she knew she loved Thaila Kostas. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you like
> 
> incorrectvalk.tumblr.com


	3. I can't sleep until I feel your touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finka learns some stuff from Apollo
> 
> warning about abuse and such

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure what i was doing at the beginning but it worked out?

Apollo didn’t know how long she was watching or how long her mouth was hanging open as she watched Finka lift weights but she felt something stirring in her stomach. Behind her, Karhu approaches, a slight smile on her lips. “The sexual tension between the two of you is starting to radiate through the base, just fuck her already.”

Apollo jumps and looks back at her, face as red as a tomato as she stutters out a string of words. Karhu stares at her for a moment before her eyes widen. “Oh shit, you’ve never…”

Apollo backs into the wall, looking at the floor as she shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do… I want to but I don’t want to disappoint or something.”

Karhu takes a glance at Finka, who was still lost in her music coming from her headphones. Biting her lip, she looks at the smaller woman. “All I can say is that Finka is a hundred percent a top and you most definitely a bottom… I can't really help you, whatever happens just enjoy it and say if you don't like anything, sorry kid.” Karhu pats her back before leaving her alone with her thoughts. 

Apollo walks towards Finka, who sits up from the bench and wipes her hands on her shorts, she smiles when she spots the smaller woman. She starts to speak but is stopped when Apollo straddles her and kisses her hard. Finka's hands go straight to her ass, holding her in place as she pushes back into the kiss. When she pulls back for air, she’s looking straight into the girl's eyes. “Wow.”

Feeling a bit brave, she stands up and winks at her. “Meet you back in your room?”

Finka watches her walk out of the gym, a look of shock on her face as she feels the warmth between her legs. She rushes to clean up any mess she could’ve made and quickly runs out the door almost knocking over Buha who glares at her. She tosses an apology over her shoulder as she continues to jog towards her room.

She locks the door behind her as soon as she enters, slowly walking to her bedroom with a small smile on her face as she sees Apollo sitting on the edge of the bed in her bra and panties. 

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Finka walks a bit closer, staring at the woman in front of her, taking in every detail of this moment that was playing out in front of her. Apollo reaches out and tucks a finger under the band of her sweat pants, pulling her forward. Finka leans down, taking the woman’s head in her hands and kissing her softly. The Greek woman’s hands slid under the tank top, her fingers brushing past the woman's abs as she's pulled to her feet. Finka drops a hand from the smaller woman’s face to unsnap her bra, Apollo lets it fall to the floor as she looks back up into the green of the woman’s eyes. 

When Finka’s hand dips into the backside of her underwear, Apollo freezes. She notices quickly and pulls back. “Thaila?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” She asks softly, looking into her eyes with concern. “Did I do something wrong?”

Apollo shakes her head, looking a bit embarrassed. “No, it's me… I don’t know… I don’t know what I’m doing or how I’m supposed to react. I’m sorry.”

Finka stares at her for a split second, trying to understand what she means and when she does, she gives a smile that just melts the smaller woman. “That’s okay Thai, You don’t have to feel like-”

“I want to Lera, I just don't know what to do!” Apollo says, tears in her eyes, “I just didn’t want to disappoint you!”

“Hey!” Finka says loudly, turning her chin up to make eye contact. “I don’t care if you have the experience of a god or none at all! I’m not with you for that, I’m with you because I love you!”

“You love me?”

“Of course I do.”

Apollo steps up on her toes and kisses Finka hard on the lips. She once again wraps her arms around the smaller girl, holding her tightly as they kiss. After a few seconds, she slowly dips her down to lay her down on the bed, hovering atop of her as they kissed slowly. “May I take care of you?”

Apollo nods slowly as Finka moves her mouth down to her neck. Nipping and sucking as she trails down her body. She’s quick to take a nipple to her mouth and sucking softly, making Apollo moan. She trails down her stomach, leaving soft kisses as she carefully pulls down Apollo’s underwear. Finka drops down between the Greek woman’s legs, bringing her mouth to meet her lover’s core. She kisses Apollo’s thigh a few times before proceeding to bring her tongue to the girl’s folds. 

Apollo lets out a surprised moan as Finka begins to stroke carefully and teasingly at the woman's clit, after a few seconds she picks up the pace of her strokes, Apollo arched off the bed, her legs closing around Finka’s head, who wraps brings her arm up to hold too as she brings the smaller woman to her first-ever orgasm. 

Finka pulls back from her thighs and moves back up towards Apollo, kissing her neck softly as she slowly comes down from the high. When she comes back to earth, Finka is still kissing her neck, her hand roaming the woman’s lower stomach. Apollo turns her head, forcing the redhead to look up at her. “I want you too.”

Finka smiles softly, kissing her gently as she shuffles to get into a more comfortable position. Her hand dips down between her thighs, Apollo lets a moan escape as the Belarusian finger slips past her folds. When she opens her eyes, she sees green staring down at her, “Are you ready?”

Apollo moves her arms to wrap around Finka’s neck, giving her a soft nod.

“I need to hear you say it, Love.”

“I’m ready Lera.”

Finka captures the Greek’s lips once again before resting her forehead against Apollos as she moves her fingers to the entrance of her core. With one finger she pushed inside causing her to cry out, pulling Finka down towards her, clinging to her neck. Finka stills her movements, letting Apollo get used to the feeling, softly kissing her neck and whispering words of encouragement. “I’m going to move now.”

Apollo nods her head as Finka begins to slowly take a pace, after a minute of comfort she looks up at her girl, “I’m going to add a second, okay?”

Apollo nods and she pushes a second finger in which makes the smaller woman moan out in pleasure. After a few seconds she pushes deeper inside and picks up a steady pace, Apollo makes nonsensical sounds and Finka bites her lip as she watches her, Finka accepts the desperate kisses that Apollo tries to give her. It’s lazy and gasps escape from her when the heel of Finka’s palm rubs against her clit and Apollo whimpers brokenly with each thrust. 

Finka brings Apollo to her second and then her third and final orgasm within minutes. The third time it takes her a bit longer to come down from and Finka just holds her in her arms as she slowly returns to her body. 

Finka moves to hover above her once again, this time only to kiss her softly. Apollo pulls her down on top of her, moaning at the weight of the woman on top of her. They kiss for what feels like forever when Apollo stares up at her. “Can I do anything...”

Finka shakes her head softly. “No, this is all about you.”

“Okay.”

“How do you feel?”

“It hurts a little but good… if that makes sense?”

“It does, it's normal for the first time. Don’t worry.” Finka says moving the strands of hair from the smaller woman’s face. “I’m glad I can make you feel good.”

“Lera.”

“Yes?”

“I love you too.”

Finka laughs softly before capturing her lover's lips once again, kissing her passionately. “I’m head over heels for you Kostas…” She looks down at the smaller girl in her arms, only to discover that she was fast asleep, making the smile on her face bigger. 

Finka just knew she was doomed.

~~

Nobody has ever made her feel this happy.

It’s quite an overwhelming thought, but nobody has given her the same sparkling happiness and contentment that Finka’s mere presence has filled her with. She can’t even fathom how Finka loving her makes her feel. She’s never experienced such a feeling.

Karhu stares at her from across the dining hall when she walks, giving a small smile as she approaches. “Had a good time last night? You are… glowing.”

Apollo blushes a little as she sits down in the chair. “I enjoyed it... It was something else… but good.”

“I’m glad,” Karhu says, picking up the knife from the table and begins cutting her pancakes. “If she mistreated you in any way, I would’ve destroyed her.”

Apollo giggles at the comment as Kody appears to her right with a plate of food. “Oh, thank you, Kody!” Kody gives her a soft smile and returns to the kitchen. “Is it weird that I want to do it again?”

Karhu shifts awkwardly, taking a piece of the pancake into her mouth. “No, I suppose not. Look, I’m not really the person to talk about this stuff with.”

“I’m sorry.”

Karhu silently curses herself at the sound of hurt in the girl's voice. “I just mean I’m not really comfortable talking about other people’s sex lives, nor my own. But I’m happy for you Thai Sauce.”

Apollo smiles softly as Finka sits down next to her. 

“Well, well, well. Look who finally joins the team at breakfast.”

“Shut it, Korhonen,” Finka says sharply before she turns her gaze at Apollo, who is smiling while she cuts her pancakes, looking adorable as usual. “Sad I didn’t wake up next to you.”

“I’m sorry. I was really hungry and Kody always makes pancakes on Tuesday.” Apollo gives her best sad eyes and Finka just sighs and pecks her on the lips. Karhu makes a fake throwing up noise and Finka stares at her, which makes her laugh as she finishes her breakfast. 

They make small talk for a while when the group to their right starts getting into a heated argument in Russian. One of the Russian's slams his fists down hard into the table, kicking his chair back and knocking his cup over, screaming loudly as he turns and looks over to Apollo, making her recoil back and fall out of her chair. She stares up at the giant of a man, fear in her eyes, trembling. 

Karhu stands up immediately yelling at the man. Finka drops down beside her, hand rubbing circles into her back, telling her it was okay. It dawns on her quickly that everyone was looking at her. The sound around her was starting to become incoherent and she could hear her own heartbeat fast. She thinks the Russian man is apologizing but also thinks he’s yelling at her so she scrambles to her feet and runs out from the dining room, everyone calling out after her as she disappears. 

~~

  
  


Finka and Karhu find her half an hour later, sitting on the top of the stands, her knees pulled to her chest, a slight shiver as a reaction to the cool weather. 

“Thaila?” Karhu asks in a tone that neither Finka nor Apollo have heard before, “You should come inside, it's about to rain again, don’t want to catch a cold.”

Apollo doesn’t respond, she stays in her spot, staring off in the distance. “Eryka, I know you mean well, but may I be alone with her?”

Karhu looks like she would rather not leave but nods. She turns to leave, stopping and taking off her turquoise jacket and draping it over the smaller woman, staring at her with concern before walking down the stands and towards the building.

Finka sits down beside her, they sit in silence for a few minutes. Apollo slowly slips her arms into the large jacket. “I’m sorry for being a burden.”

Finka turns her head and meets Apollo’s gaze, a look of hurt in her eyes. “You are not a Burden Thaila.”

“It sure seems like it.” Apollo whispers. “I’m just broken I guess.”

Finka pulls the smaller woman onto her lap and holds her tightly. “You are not broken Thaila, you are amazing, and you're strong. You lived through so many things.”

“Everyone was just staring at me in there…”

“Because they were confused and they were concerned,” Finka assures her. “They care about you, they’ve never seen you react like that before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize Apollo, you have nothing to be sorry about.”

They sit in silence for another minute or two when Apollo finally speaks. “When I was seven, a few weeks after my mother passed. I missed her so damn much and my foster father didn't like it… he didn't care. He yelled at me, screamed his head off before he finally hit me. It started out with just hand spankings or his fist but it upgraded to the belt, and then to the electrical cord, and then the broom handles and curtain rods… anything to get me to shut up and obey. It went on for a year or two… I tried to kill myself though I couldn’t do it, couldn’t find the nerve.”

She looked up at Finka, who was staring down at her with such sadness that it made Apollo want to sink further into her lap as she continued. “Not thinking there was any way out, wishing you were dead every day…just so you wouldn’t feel the pain anymore, it became a constant. When I finally got removed at nine, I thought I was safe… but my foster siblings hurt me in other ways. Name-calling, threats, blaming me, messing with my head… It was just a never-ending thing that continued until I turned seventeen and enlisted into the military. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t panic when someone got angry. I’m all kinds of messed up, so if you wanna back out…”

“No.” Finka says, catching her gaze. “I’m not going anywhere, I accept you as you are. The panic attacks, the shortness, everything. I want you.”

“Lera…”

“I’m serious Thaila. For the first time in a long time… I feel like I've finally found my home. What happened in your past is just that, your past. It made you who you are and I love who you are. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I know it hurts more than you think you can manage right now but you can’t get rid of me that easy.”

Apollo sits silently for a second as Finka spills her guts, looking up at her with such innocence it made the woman want to wrap her up in a blanket and hide her away from the world. 

“Is this you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

Finka lets out a short laugh, nodding. “Yeah, I guess so. Do you want to?”

“Of course.” She responds quietly, reaching her hand up to cup Finka’s cheek. “Never thought you’d ask.”

“It’s been eating me upside for weeks,” Finka admits as Apollo sits up in her lap, leaning in to kiss her just as it starts to rain. “Let's get inside okay? I think Karhu might be worried.”

Apollo smiles softly, tugging at the Finnish women's jacket. “I imagine she’s what it's like to have an older sibling.”

“I’d say so.” Finka agrees, standing up still holding the smaller woman, beginning to walk down the stairs as Apollo rests her head against her chest. “Karhu cares deeply about you, not really sure why but she will protect you as any older sibling should.”

When they make it back to the main building, Karhu is pacing back and forth, lost in thought. Apollo motions for Finka to let her down, and when she’s on her own two feet she runs over to Karhu and hugs her. 

Karhu looks relieved to see the smaller woman is alright as she hugs her back tightly. Apollo doesn't have to say anything for Karhu to know that she's okay. The smaller woman slips out of the jacket and hands it to the Finnish woman and stands on her toes to kiss her on the cheek. “Thank you Eryka, I love you.”

Karhu stares down at the woman, at a loss for words as Apollo smiles up at her before walking back to Finka and taking her hand. She watches them walk away, a weird feeling erupting in her chest. 

That night Finka made love to Apollo again, showing her love in multiple ways, valuing every part of her body, worshiping her like she was a goddess. Finka had come to realize that she had never loved someone more in her life than this five foot two woman who stormed into her head three months ago and refused to leave. She held her closer than usual that night as she slept, she never wanted to fall asleep without her in her arms again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IncorrectValk on tumblr


	4. You build up hope but failure's all you've known

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Operation Lost Viper. Stuff happens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for hurting the babies

_When you were standing in the wake of devastation_   
_When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown_   
_And with the cataclysm raining down, insides crying save me now_   
_You were there impossibly alone_   
_Do you feel cold and lost in desperation_   
_You build up hope but failure's all you've known_   
_Remember all the sadness and frustration_   
_And let it go, let it go_

  
The Five women arrived in Peru at the asscrack of dawn, Amaru somehow more optimistic than Apollo, maybe it was because she was back in her home country or maybe it’s because she’s excited to be working in the Peruvian Amazonia.

Amaru and Nokk were walking ahead, talking about the wildlife that resides in the jungle as Kody helps put the sleeping Apollo onto Karhu’s back. The taller woman’s arms tucking under Apollo’s legs as the girl's head lays against her right shoulder blade. “She really weighs nothing, huh?”

Kody laughs at Karhu's face. “I told you she’s like a toddler.”

“A toddler that kills.” 

They follow the other two women into the APCA building. Kody wipes the sleep from her eyes, with a yawn she drops onto the couch in the briefing room, watching as the Finnish woman carefully lowers the sleeping woman onto the couch. 

A man walks into the room, Amaru following him. Both talking in Spanish, lost in their conversation. The tall woman pauses mid-sentence and looks to Kody, “Can you go get Nokk? Think she was in the bathroom.” 

Kody groans but listens to her team captain, shuffling out the room and towards the bathroom, knocking on the door in the code they created. The door clips open and Kody walks in and locks the door. She sees Nokk by the sink, splashing her face with water. “You okay Flora?”

The danish woman just shrugs at the question as she drys her face with the paper towel. “I’m as good as I'll ever be. Wishing that Luna was here with us but no, we had to bring Apollo.”

“Flora, you know why Luna was unassigned,” Kody says, picking up the woman’s messed helmet. “Besides, Apollo’s modified gadget will help us better.” Nokk mopes as Kody puts the helmet on her head, clasping the helmet and pulling the mesh veil down. “I’m sure we’ll be done here soon and you be with her again, okay?”

Nokk mumbles something under her breath as they walk out from the bathroom and back to the briefing room. Amaru and the man are talking to Apollo and Karhu about the white mask activities within the amazon and how it’s beginning to interrupt the wildlife. 

The Greek woman was looking down at the file, reading it slowly as Karhu stared up at the roof in boredom. “Why can’t we just go in and kill them all?”

“Eryka, Killing shouldn’t always be your first solution to these things,” Apollo says quietly, placing a hand on the woman’s bouncing leg. 

“Apollo is right,” Amaru says, “Besides we have to find out where they are keeping these creatures.”

“What creatures are they taking again?” Kody asks as she leans over Karhu's seat, the white-haired woman shifts to look up and blows air on her face. Kody lightly slaps her cheek. 

“They’re catching Pumas, Jaguars, Andean spectacled bears amongst others but they are the main ones they're hunting.” The man explains as he walks around the desk. “It’s speculated they are selling them off to the highest bidder, the winner rather kills them for their fur and meat while others use them for breeding. This is affecting all of Peru's wildlife and making the species rate diminish.”

“We need to find the locations where they are holding these animals and destroy them.” Amaru continues and pulls out a map of the Peruvian Amazonia, using a sharpie to circle two big locations. “Diego and his men have speculated that they have camps in these two areas. Our group is going to go for the one here on the bottom left while his group will head for the northern right.”

“This doesn’t really seem like a mission for team rainbow through Amaru.” Karhu states

“Whatever the white masks do is our team's business.”

Kody rests her chin on top of Karhu’s head, dropping the weight of her arms onto her broad shoulders. “If the white masks get away with what they're doing it means they get money to do more terrorist things. I’m sure you can kill a few while we’re there.”

“Precisely,” Amaru says as she sits down in a chair across from them and pulls out a notebook and begins to sketch quickly. Her first sketch was a small version of Kody. “We will be traveling in single file formation. The first in line, the most important will be your Kody. You are team rainbows best tracker. Given your acute sense of hearing and sight, you’ll be able to detect and disarm any booby traps.”

“But why a single file formation?” Karhu asks, “A single-file formation is vulnerable to a frontal attack.”

“Let her finish please, Karhu,” Apollo asks softly, and Karhu shuts her mouth and motions for the woman to continue.

“Yes, it is. That is why Kody is most effective.” Amaru answers the question then proceeding to move on, “Now me, the platoon leader, will come second. Whatever the situation maybe, I can respond by ordering Kody directly from behind and at the same time I can use hand signals to communicate with the rest of you.”

Amaru quickly draws herself behind Kody and then Karhu behind her.

“The center, the third is Karhu. You’ve got the best initiative so you’re best placed at the heart. You can support either the front or back, as needed. You are the hinge of our backup, especially given how useful your Dyrnwyn is.”

Amaru starts to draw Nokk.

“Nokk, you’re fourth up. You have speed and have the greatest striking power. Once Kody, Karhu and I launch an attack, you take the stage with a fatal blow. In other words, your job is the follow-up strike.”

Amaru draws Apollo next, making it a bit cuter than need be. 

“Finally, bringing up the rear is Apollo. Rearguard is the toughest job of all. With your Ikaros, you can ensure that our squad has no blind spots. I have my utter faith in you Apollo.”

The squad looks at her, and she gives a firm nod. “You can depend on me.”

Kody reaches her hand out and squeezes the girl's shoulder, a slight smile on her lips. 

“Let's gear up. We leave in ten.”

~~

Apollo was enraptured by the view of the jungle, despite the height. Staring out the window of the helicopter the entire ride, a giant grin on her face. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Isn’t it beautiful Eryka?”

Karhu gives her a quick nod, “Absolutely.”

They finally land on top of a cliff, quite a few miles out from the sector that was speculated to be in. Amaru thanks the pilots and sends him off. Leaving the five women in the middle of the Peruvian Amazonia. They form their formation as they began the descent from the cliff and into the jungle. The walk was quiet for the most part, stopping every now and then for a quick breather or to let Apollo capture a picture of something. 

They come to a stop when Amaru taps Kody on the shoulder why signaling those behind her to stop. Their stop comes as they meet a bridge. A large, well-structured bridge was placed. Karhu wanders to the edge, whistling at the height. “How high up are we, damn.”

Apollo visibly freezes when Karhu mentions the height. “We have to cross the bridge?”

“It seems like it. I didn’t know this bridge existed.” Amaru says walking towards it. “We’ll continue our path, stay in formation.”

Nokk turns and looks at the girl. “Hold on to my belt and close your eyes.”

Apollo appreciates this hugely and slips her fingers under the belt, closing her fist around it and closing her eyes, letting the Danish women lead her. 

When the squad just meets the middle of the bridge Kody stops abruptly. Amaru motions for the team behind her to stop, Apollo bumps into the back of Nokk, letting out a quiet apology.

“Kingdom, what's up?” Amaru asks cautious, hands ready on her gun.

Kody closes her eyes and focuses her hearing. “I Should've noticed it sooner.”

“What?”

“The silence.” Kody says, “There are no birds, no wildlife roaming the area. This bridge is well made for an area that has no traffic, no villages nearby.”

Kody walked slowly to the right side of the bridge and carefully looked over the edge. Her entire team standing incredibly still, waiting for any information. Karhu can she the Canadian's jaw clench as she slowly back up from the railing. “Kingdom?”

“This bridge wasn’t made to have heavy objects cross it. It's made well enough to trick anyone at first glance… but as someone who spent years engineering many things, I know that this bridge is merely a distraction…” Kody pauses as she tilts her as she begins to walk over to the left side of the bridge, “...even a trap.”

As she finished her thoughts an explosion went off under the left side of the bridge. Kody manages to fall back and land on the stable part of the bridge as the left side concrete crumbs down. There was a scream within the explosion as a piece of concrete flys back and nicks the Greek woman in the head with enough force to make her lose balance and slip. She slides down the crumbling bridge, hands scrambling to catch anything, panic surging through her. Just as she slides to the end her hand grabs and clutches the hard rebar. Pulling herself back onto the bridge, barely holding on.

“APOLLO!” Kody screams as she runs over to Karhu who is pulling Nokk up onto the safe side of the bridge. “Amaru your hook!”

“It will be useless!” She screams, panic in her own voice. 

Apollo screams again as the rebar begins to slide out of the bridge. As Kody stared down everything flashes through her head. She sees Jade, holding for dear life as her body dangles in the wind. Her hazel eyes staring straight at her, the sad smile on her face as she says it's okay before disappearing. Then she sees the woman from operation Twilight Raven, how she dived for the women's hand and missed by a few centimeters and she fell to her death. When her mind clears she sees Apollo dangling from the edge, fear in her eyes. 

“I don’t like heights, never have. I can deal with it yeah, but falling? I never wanna experience that kind of fear you know?” 

Kody takes a step forward. A strong hand clasps her wrist and pulls her back. Kody looks at and sees something she’s never seen before in the tall women’s eyes. Fear. Concern. “Kody I - I can’t lose you both… let alone my best friend.”

“I’m sorry Eryka but I have too. I can’t - I can’t do it again, I can’t lose someone else like this, not again.” 

Reluctantly she drops her wrist, she drops her bag and pulls out the grappling hook wire and wraps it around the woman's waist, handing it over to Amaru who runs over to the other side of the bridge to secure it. 

“Be careful,” Karhu says a bit softer than usual as she watches Kody carefully repel down the side of the bridge, carefully sliding across the concrete as she slowly gets closer. There's another tremor across the bridge and the rebar slides out way further. “SHIT!”

Apollo stares up at Kody, the fear in her eyes overwhelming Kody. “It’s okay Kody… Don’t worry about me.”

“No!” She shouts “Shut up! I’m going to get you!”

Kody stops, not willing but by the length of the rope stops. “KODY THAT’S AS MUCH AS WE CAN GET!”

Kody curses herself as another tremble happens, the rebar slipping again. She can see the tears in the small woman's eyes, the woman's grip slipping. Kody refused to let her go alone because she couldn’t wish that on anyone. She brings her trembling hands to the secure hook and releases herself. She hears Karhu screaming at her from above as she slides down the remaining part of the bridge just as Apollo’s grip slips. Her arm reaches out for Kody who reaches it, Pulling the smaller girl into her chest, tucking her head into her neck as she turns them over so Kody would take any impact that would come as the fall into the unknown. 

Karhu couldn't help but stare in silent horror freezing like a deer in headlights as they fell, she didn't want to lose anyone again, she had promised herself that and now here she stands, watching as two of the most important people in her life disappear. She feels herself move towards the edge only to be stopped by Amaru, who in turn has tears in her eyes as she also watched them fall, two people she saw as daughters. 

“I have to Amaru, I have to go with them.” She tries to push past her to get to the edge but Amaru holds her in place, taking her into a hug as Karhu tries to fight her. “I can’t let you go Eryka, I’m sorry.”

“SHE’S MY BEST FUCKING FRIEND! I HAVE TOO” Karhu fights the restraint for a few seconds before she breaks down in the woman’s arms. “She’s my best friend.”

“I know _novia_ , I know.” 

They stay like that for a moment before the bridge trembles again and Amaru commands them to get off the bridge. Karhu drops to the ground as soon as they leave the bridge, resting her elbows on her knees as her head hangs between her hands.

Nokk drops her helmet to the ground, revealing herself to the woman, who stares in shock as they recognize the woman and watch the tears fall down her face as she stares up into the hot Peruvian sun. 

Reluctantly Amaru makes the call to base, calling off the search for the white masks. Postponing Operation Inca Dawn. Karhu can hear the stunned silence from Valkyrie as she takes in the news.

A new voice quickly appears, Mira.

She’s screaming over the radio at Amaru, half in English, half in Spanish before she goes silent. Valkyrie sets a new mission for them to return to the APCA building to regroup and wait for any command from Six.

Both Karhu and Nokk are furious at this. 

“We need to go down there and search for them now!” Karhu screams loudly, “They could be alive, we don’t have time to twiddle our thumbs!” 

Amaru smacks her. She actually smacks her hard across the face, Stunning Karhu. ”You don’t think for one second that I’m not thinking or feeling the same way! But there are rules we have to follow, I know they are not good rules at times and I know you're worried but you have to trust the rules.”

Karhu turns and walks away to the edge and just screams. 

Nokk is on her knees just staring into the distance, not knowing how to respond to the world of emotions that is surrounding the three women. 

Eventually, the helicopter picks them up and they sit in silence on their way back to the APCA building. Once inside they continued their silence.

Karhu’s fingers playing with the little metal deer figurine that she had helped Apollo create, her fingers tracing the slick metal of its antlers. Amaru walks into the room from wherever it was that she had gone. 

“Pretty much all of Team rainbow are on their way,” Amaru says, her voice horse and Karhu knows that the woman has been crying. “We’ve been told to stay here until they arrive.”

Karhu closes her fist around the metal deer hard, the antlers sharp enough to cut into the skin of her fingers. She doesn't respond to the pain but opens her palm to watch the blood trickle down the metal antlers. All she thought about that night was, “Why did I freeze? Why didn’t I act sooner?” 

And god, does it eat her up inside.

~~

Whatever Kody thought was the worst pain she’d ever experienced had been wiped from her memory and replaced by this single moment. 

The single moment of her back slamming hard into the water.

Her entire being screamed out in pain as her grip loosened on Apollo and she continued to sink in the water, willingly letting herself go into the darkness. She could feel her lungs burning for air but she didn’t care as the cool water circled around her and she droned out the world. 

Apollo, on the other hand, didn’t take much impact from the water. She met the air with a cough and kicked her way to dry land. Coughing up water and struggling to breathe as she dropped onto her stomach. Staring off into the distance for a moment before she realizes she doesn’t hear Kody. Weakly she turns and looks at the lake, waiting for any sign of her friend to pop up to the surface. 

She doesn’t.

Apollo forces herself up and back into the lake. She raced towards the sinking woman and pulled her up towards the surface. Apollo struggles with the woman’s weight, but she fights the force of gravity and manages to pull both herself and Kody onto the hard earth. She coughs hard again before turning to Kody. Beginning to loosen her gear so that she gets closer to her chest, she begins to perform CPR, tears stinging in her eyes.

~~~

Kody opens her eyes to the soft rays of sunlight peeking through the giant oak tree. She sits up, her body no longer hurting as she stares up into the warmth. She becomes perfectly aware of how light she feels. How light for the first time in years as she stands up to her feet. Her military-like clothing was replaced by a simple pair of jeans and a navy blue t-shirt. She wandered down the oh so familiar path till she saw someone.

Someone who she thought she’d never see again. A smile came to her face as she approached. He turned and looked at her, a sad smile on his face. When she reached him, he hugged her tightly. “It’s good to see you again Kodiak.”

“Dakota.”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“It seems that it's your time.” He says sadly and sits down on the old seat swing that was on his property oh so long ago. “Tell me everything, I wanna know everything.”

Kody stares down at him but joins him on the swing and begins to tell her tale.

When she tells her story up to the current moment of time, she feels the sadness in her chest as she realizes what she has left behind. Dakota smiles softly at her and she takes in his appearance one again. His dark thick hair was cut shorter than what she remembered, his light brown skin seemed a bit more aged and his eyes wiser.

“Is this what it's like after death?”

Dakota shrugs. “It’s different for everyone because everyone believes in something different. If this is where you reside then I will accept the company.”

Kody stares up at the sun again, sadness in her eyes as it starts to dawn in on her. They sit in perfect silence for a few minutes as she begins to cough and the sun begins to fade to darkness, she turns to Dakota who gives her one of his signatures smiles that she missed so goddamn much. “It seems like your journey isn’t over Kodiak… you’re gods still have need of you. I’ll still be here when it is your time.”

She tries to call out his name but no sound escapes her lips as her vision fades to black for a moment before something sparks in the distance of the darkness. Something silver appears before her. It was the silver of a deer's antlers. 

It approaches her slowly and calmly and Kody reaches out and meets its nose. She senses something behind her and she turns and sees a woman standing in the distance. A woman clad in hunting gear dipped in silver. The woman gives her a soft smile and Kody feels something push into her chest and it takes her a moment to realize that she was being pushed back to life.

~~~

Kody heels over and begins to throw up the lake water and the mix of this morning's breakfast. Apollo is sitting next to her, rubbing circles into the center of her shoulder blades as Kody coughs hard for a minute before coming back to full reality. She turns and looks at the smaller woman who looks relieved. 

“We lived…” Apollo nods slowly as Kody stares down at herself. Was it a dream? A vision? Another reality? “Have you tried to call the others?”

“The impact with the water must’ve destroyed them. The radios don’t respond.”

Kody curses as she moves to stand on her feet, instantly groaning at the pain as she fights through it. “We should try and get moving, head back towards the base if we can.”

“Why not the location we were heading, wouldn’t we meet up with them?”

“Because if they reported to six of the incidents they would cancel the mission and proceed to send out a recovery team for our bodies.”

“Our bodies?”

“I’m not going to lie, we shouldn’t have survived that fall,” Kody says weakly. “They are smart to assume we are dead. But for now, we must return towards APCA.”

Kody begins to walk slowly in a direction, stopping when Apollo calls out her name. “You’re heading south-west. APCA building is North-east.”

Kody smiles softly and turns directions to follow her squadmate. Apollo walked in front but turned to look back at Kody every few moments to check on her. They walked for god knows long, the sun had almost set when Kody said to stop, falling back against a tree, arm gripping at her stomach. “We have to rest here for the night. I’m too tired to keep going, besides, it's bad to travel through the jungle at night with no direction.”

“That’s smart,” Apollo says as she moves to sit next to the taller woman, she was exhausted but forced herself to keep going, she wanted nothing more to go home and fall into the arms of her girlfriend and never leave. The two women fell asleep quickly in the darkness of the semi-quiet forest.

When Kody woke she found that she was restrained. Arms tied behind a chair tightly, her legs also bound to the legs of a metal chair. Across from her, she sees Apollo in the same predicament, still asleep. Kody silently cursed herself for letting them get captured. She moved to turn her arm but got hit with a wave of pure pain. Her body hasn’t, and won’t, recover from slamming into the lake. She lets herself sit in silence, letting Apollo get as much sleep as possible before they experience whatever it was they were about too. 

Another hour passes before a door opens and three men walk into the room, dawning white masks because why wouldn’t they? The one man who seemed to be in charge walked over to the still sleeping Apollo and smacked her hard.

Apollo woke with a start, fear setting in when she realizes the situation that she was in, her eyes searching for Kody’s. 

“Good morning Ladies!” The man chuckles, spinning on the spot. “That was quite the fall you ladies took! Surprised you survived. Good on you.”

The man lightly smacks Kody’s cheek, Kody doesn’t respond to it in any way, just lets it happen. She’s learned from watching Caveira do interrogations that responding to certain actions is exactly what they want. 

“We hoped to get all of you… but two will do.” He says as he pulls out a knife from its place on his leg. “You are going to start telling me something or one of you is going to get hurt.”

“Fuck you.” Apollo spits at him angrily, Kody closes her eyes in frustration, solo integration would be easy, but the duo would be impossible. She had to protect Apollo with her life. The man, who Kody deemed Steve from his stupid ponytail sticking out from the back, walked to the smaller girl and put the knife to her cheek.

“Stop, leave her out of this!” Kody pleads, “She has nothing to do with this. She’s new to team Rainbow, she doesn’t know a goddamn thing.”

The man turns and looks at her in a way that makes her assume that he’s smiling. “So I’ve assumed. That’s why you are going to answer our questions or your friend will pay the price.”

Kody felt anger deep in her chest as he walked behind Apollo. “The first question, to make sure you understand how serious I am, Tell me something Rainbow knows about our organization, you tell me and maybe I’ll only interrogate you”

Kody stares at him, Apollo meets her eyes and shakes her head, silently telling her not to say a goddamn thing. “One of your leaders is a man named Anthony Hutcherson. He lives in Rextown, Montana. He has a wife and three kids.” 

The man hesitates, actually hesitates. 

“Didn’t actually think you would answer.”

“It's a detail that doesn’t matter in the end,” Kody says.

The man approaches her, thinking for a moment before punching her hard in the head. “I really wanted a reason to torture your friend.”

“Oops.”

That earns another punch. Anything to keep their greasy paws off of Apollo. She could feel the blood trickle from her nose. She made eye contact with her squadmate again, mouthing for her to close her eyes. 

“I dislike you already, so I’m not going to hurt your friend, I'm going to ask her the questions she can't answer just so I can make you hurt.” Kody tried to move, anger in her eyes. The man sighs as he removes his mask and tosses it to the ground. “That thing really is a bother to wear.”

Kody took in each detail of his face and for some reason, she couldn’t find what it was that made him seem so familiar. 

“First question!” He says walking over to Kody, spinning his knife, “What was the name of the cat I had when I was a kid?”

Apollo stared at him in confusion, “Why are you asking me this?”

“Answer it.”

“I don’t know, Simba?”

The man stops and stares at her. “That’s a good guess, okay wow. My zodiac sign? “

Kody shakes her head, suppressing a smile. 

“Aquarius.”

The man stares at her in silence.

“Favourite animal?”

“Tiger?”

The man sighs, “For fuck's sake.” she turns to Kody and slams the knife into her leg. 

Kody suppresses a scream as she jolts back. Apollo screams though, telling him to stop. The man just smiles, finally getting the reaction he wanted. She hangs her head back, breathing heavily as he grips the knife's hilt and pulls it out. Kody’s entire body aches and she lets a groan slip. 

“Tell me about your fellow operative Crow.”

“I don’t know anything about her.” Apollo says, “I’ve just joined team rainbow! I’ve only met her for a mere second.”

“I believe you.” He says turning to Kody. “Tell me what you know about crow.”

Kody stares at him, saying nothing. He sighs and presses his thumb into her open wound, she grunts, grinding her teeth. “Her name is Avery.”

“I already knew that.”

“Then what is it you want to know!?”

“How is she?” Kody stares at him in confusion. His voice was clear and his eyes seemed curious. “Does she sleep normally, does she still avoid people at all costs? Is she in pain? Does she ever think about…”

As he cuts himself, Kody hears the softness in his voice for a split second as she wraps her brain for any kind of hint then it hits her, why his face looked so familiar. It was the face of the man that stood beside Crow in the picture attached to her file. “I know who you are…”

The man's eyes snapped to hers.

“You’re him, Crows partner, Mi-” 

He cut her off, smacking her hard in the head with the butt of the knife. Knocking her unconscious. He stands looking at his men, anger in his eyes makes Apollo shiver. “Do what you will with the small one. Don’t touch the Canadian.” 

He pushes past them and out the door. Apollo stares at the two men who glance at each other and smile. 

~~~

When Karhu woke, almost all of team rainbow was inside the briefing room. Karhu stood in silence as they looked at her as she stepped into the room. Mira makes way to her and pulls her into a hug. The Finnish woman just stands still and lets it happen. “It's not your fault Eryka.”

But what if it was? 

That's what she wanted to say but couldn't find the nerve as Mira pulls back, reaches up and brushes her thumb against her cheek. From behind her, she sees Harry walk up towards Amaru. “You had a plan, a formation. What happened?”

The tall woman took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She waits a second before she exhales and begins to explain the series of events that occurred the day before.

When she finished, Mira looked sad but not surprised. Finka looked exhausted, overwhelmed with worry. Valkyrie sits at her side and rubs her back, whispering something to her. 

Ember stands to the left of Amaru and looks at the map of the Peruvian jungle that was on the wall, lost in thought. Harry sighs as he looks at the map with her. “We’ll be going towards the same location of the bridge via helicopter. Group up into teams of five, when you land on the ground you’ll split up and search. Frost, Take the lead.”

Harry dismissed the group and they all made way to the airfield. Each group got into separate heli’s and they headed off towards the bridge. Karhu heard Mira curse as she saw the destruction of the bridge. Karhu looked down at her weapon, trying to force the memories from her head. She feels the Spanish woman’s hand on her knee, giving a soft squeeze.

Their helicopters hover just above the ground near a lake and they begin to descend down the rope and into the jungle. Frost immediately signals her team over, holding something in her hand. “It’s a Kodys.”

“How do you know.” Finka questions, taking the object in her hand.

“Besides her name being badly sketched into the side? It’s JTF2 equipment.” Frost says and holds up a second item. “I’m going to assume this is Apollos?” 

Finka nods sadly.

“Looks like they ditched it after they realized it was useless.” Frost crouches down to the ground. “Thankfully it appears there were no injuries. No blood anywhere.”

Karhu wanders towards a tree to the northeast. Fingers reaching out to touch the hard bark, tracing and the etched mark. “Frost, over here.”

The Canadian scrambles over to see. “This was Kody, this is a symbol from JTF2.” She reaches for her radio and begins to tell the teams to start heading Northeast from their position. “Let’s go.”

The four women follow after Frost. Karhu followed far behind, letting herself overthink every little bad thing that could happen from this situation. She didn’t quite understand this feeling inside. Was it anger or was it fear? She was starting to think she didn't want to know. They walked for what felt like hours until Frost signaled them to stop and crouch. 

“There was a scuffle here,” Frost says, inspecting the area until she found something and holding it up. “A metal bear…”

Karhu’s stomach turned to a knot as she approached and took the object. “It’s Apollo’s. I made it for her. She wouldn’t drop it willingly.”

They stand in silence for a moment. Then they heard something in the distance, something that couldn't be mistaken for anything other than gunshots. 

“Squads check-in, were those gunshots yours?” Frost asks over they're coms.

“Negative,” Caveira replies for her team.

“Not us.” Valkyrie relays back. 

Negative here.” Kaid replies.

“Wasn’t us either.” Alibi says, “What’s our course of action?”

Frost stays silent for a moment, waiting for something. Another burst of gunfire rips across the jungle and she brings her radio up. “Let's head towards the gunfire, don’t get too close. When we discover what it is, let us regroup.” 

The groups respond quickly in affirmatives and Frost’s group begins to jog towards the gunfire. They run for about twenty minutes before they reach a large concrete opening that looks like it leads underground. They hold their position and alert the rest of the squads to their position and wait for the regroup.

~~~

17 minutes earlier

When Kody woke up she was laying down on her back. Her ears were ringing as she turned to look over at the sound she thought she was hearing. The sound of hard flesh smacking into something wet and hard. 

Her eyes widen when she sees Apollo sitting on top of someone, her clothing ripped awkwardly as she continues swinging her fists into the disfigured face of the body. Kody turns to her stomach, groaning loudly as she moves to get to her feet. She slowly walks to the smaller girl, eyes searching the room. A second body lay face-first on the hard cold floor, blood spreading out from it. Kody catches one of Apollo's arms before it could go down to its target. 

Apollo finally turns to look at her and it makes Kody take a short step back. The girl's face was practically covered in blood. Most of which seemed to be near her mouth, like she was a vampire and she had a messy meal. There was a deep scar on her right eyebrow which was still bleeding. “Thaila…”

“Kody… I want… can we go home?” Her voice is sad and tired as she stands up, looking like a zombie, moving to readjust her gadget screen on her wrist.

Kody felt anger stir inside as her mind pieces the situation together. “Yea, let’s get out of here.” 

She drops down to search the body of the man until she finds keys. She walks to the door and opens it. The two sneak out from the room and down the hall. They had no idea where the hell they were heading but they at least knew they’d have the element of surprise. 

Kody spotted a guard standing absent-minded in a hallway so she snuck up behind him and with a swift movement, she snapped his neck and carefully lowered him to the ground. Taking the pistol from his holster she hands it to Apollo while taking the rifle. 

They made it through the base almost undetected. They crouched behind cover as a white mask ran up to a group, breathing heavily. “Those two women escaped. One of them literally bit off Roscoe’s dick while Duncan had his head smashed in.”

The men groaned and reached for their private parts. “Told you they should've put more guards on them… let's go search the base. Shoot to injure but not kill.”

They wandered off and the two women continued their way through the base, looking for any way out. Kody opens a random door, making her stop in her spot, jaw hanging open as she sees two men going at it like rabbits. The man who was thrusting stops, eyes wide. They stare at each other as Kody’s Apollo back from seeing.

“We didn’t see each other?” The Men nod quickly as she closes the door and clears her throat. “Let’s continue.”

They jog down the hall just as two white masks turn the corner. They scream something in Spanish as Kody raises her weapon and fires. She kills the man on the right but she gets hit right in the gut and falls back to the ground hard. Apollo finishes him off quickly with a single shot to the skull. She wraps an arm under Kodys and begins pulling the heavy woman towards their exit. An alarm goes off and Apollo curses as she begins to hear heavy footsteps heading towards them. Her gadget screen beeps, she looks down with a smirk and accepts the transmission.

~~~

The six teams regrouped as the gunfire began to pick up. Mira pulls out another one of Apollo’s gadgets, handing it to Crow who proceeds to attach it to her drone and send it into the sky above the base. Mira sends a signal through that gets accepted almost immediately and the screen in front of her lights up and shows the basic structure symmetric, and the head signatures. Mira scans the building looking for Apollo distinct colour attributes. A nice hot pink heat signature that Mira worked into the gadget’s mainframe. She was about to be overwhelmed as her heat signature seemed to struggle pulling another. Kody.

“I found her. We need to move fast, she’s about to be overwhelmed.” Mira instructs. 

Frost nods. “Crow, Caveira, Mira, Nomad, and Doc. The five of you will head in once we attract them outside for some fun.” 

The five trail off as the twenty operators set off some kind of explosion. An alarm roared loudly. Crow motioned for her team to hold as white masks came tumbling out from entrances and beginning to fire at their teammates.

“Mira, you find the right entrance?” Crow asks, looking at the small woman. 

“I did, we should move now.” 

Crow gives a nod and the five proceed towards the objective. “Nomad put an air jab on this door.” 

The woman nods and does so. She runs to catch up with her team, crouching down low as she meets them. Crow and Mira have seemed to have engaged in a firefight in the mess hall of this building. 

“Cav take this and lead the two others to Apollo and Kody. We got this.”

The Brazilian nods and grabs the phone from the ground and the three proceed towards the area.

They're comms ring out, echoing loudly in the halls, making Caveira stop in her tracks. “WE GOT TWO HIT. TWITCH AND GOYO ARE DOWN.”

“Keep going Taina, Emma will be fine,” Doc says to the woman, his voice sincere. “We have to get Kingdom and Apollo.”

Caveira sighed heavily before continuing on with the mission. They neared the objective and they slid to a stop. There were about twenty white masks standing still, staring at the single door at the end of the hall. Caveira assumed that was where her teammates were.

“Nomad, shoot an air jab in between them.” She grinned devilishly, Nomad chuckles but does so.

The air jab lands without anyone noticing, it takes a second but it goes off. The impact sending some hard into the wall, others forward and back. Caveira begins to open fire, as does Nomad. They took them all down quickly and as merciful as possible. They ran to the door quickly, opening it to reveal Apollo over top of Kody, hands over a wound, blood flowing through her fingers. 

Caveira stared at the young woman, a pin of hurt in her heart. She dropped next to her and placed her hands over Apollo’s to remove them as Doc raced in to give her a shot off the stim pistol. Kody was unconscious as Doc did his work of cutting open her gear and cleaning the wound, dressing it appropriately. Caveira pulled her back and turned the young girl to face her. Caveira looked her in the eyes and saw herself in them. The shred of hope started to fade from them. Doc handed her a small bandage that she placed over the new scar above her brow. 

“It's going to be okay Thaila.” Caveira’s voice dropped lower than Doc or Nomad have ever heard. More patient and kind than even with Twitch. Caveira pulls the girl into her and hugs her tightly. Shooting a dark look at the French man who smirked and worked on Kody. 

When he was done, he carried the unconscious woman on his back and the four quickly ran back towards the Cafeteria to meet up with Mira and Crow, who appeared to have just finished. Mira rushes over to Doc and looks at her Fiance, who looks at peace in her sleep. Crow eyed the look of Apollo but said nothing about it, instead of saying. “Once we get home, we are going to Baskin Robins and buying out the store. Sounds good?”

Apollo gives a weak smile as Crow pulls her into a hug. “Let’s get you home.”

Apollo wanted to mention the man but didn’t, she didn’t know what it meant, who he was, she’d leave it up to Kody and Harry to decide. She follows behind Caveira and Crow as they head outside to see the rest of the rainbow. A bit of warmth erupts inside Apollo as she sees how many of her coworkers had come to save them. She sees a blur before she's brought into a tight hug and lifted off the ground. She couldn’t help but laugh.

“Danut!” She cheers out, wrapping her arms around his head and hugging. He whispers something in Romanian and Apollo smiles, kissing him on the cheek. “I miss you too Dork.”

He faked a lookout hurt for ruining his persona but Apollo couldn’t really care about that in a moment as her eyes met Green. She noticed how tired and how worried they were. She sprinted across the concrete and slammed into her girlfriend’s arms. The force made Finka stumble back and fall down. She had tears in her eyes as she held her small girlfriend tightly, whispering the same three words over and over again. 

To their right, Caveira is kneeling next to Twitch who has her arm in a sling but a giant smile on her face when she sees how worried her grumpy girlfriend was. Gravija was next to Goyo, whispering something into his ear, making him blush. Valkyrie hugs Crow tightly, making her try to pretend she's too cool for it.

Karhu stands off in the distance, she was relieved to see her friends alive and well but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she let it happen. Kody is injured because she let her go and be a hero. Apollo fell because she didn’t react fast enough to catch her and god, she’s so fucking afraid of all these feelings because let them get so close to her. She let them get close and they almost died right in front of her eyes, she turns away from the scene and stares out into the forests of the Peruvian Amazonia. 

Apollo watches as the tall Finnish woman turns away from them. She feels hurt that she doesn’t come over to see her. Apollo lets herself believe that Karhu blames her for this whole incident, that she was angry that the mission was sidetracked. She buries her head into the nape of Finka’s neck. “Sorry for being bloody.”

“Don’t worry about it, ščaniuk.” Finka whispers softly, “I’m just so glad that you’re alright and in my arms again.”

Finka pulls back from the embrace, staring into the eyes of her girlfriend, she sighs lightly as she pulls out a sterile cloth from the med bag and wipes the blood off her face. From her forehead to her brow to the stain around her lips and throat. When deemed clean, Finka kisses her girlfriend softly and passionately. 

“I love you, Thaila.” 

“As I do you, Lera”

Kody was still Unconscious by the helicopters who came to retrieve the operators from the area and returned to the APCA building and she stayed that way while she was then transported to the nearest hospital for better care. 

It took Kody a week before being cleared for travel to return home to hereford. She was alone for the entire week as her fiance had to return to base back in London. Kody thought about a lot of things the past week. Mainly about the man who had interrogated her. How weird it was when he asked about Crow. But every time, her mind kept wandering back to Karhu and that heart-piercing scream of her name as she fell, the fear in the woman’s eyes only to be avoided as nothing happened. Kody knew it didn’t mean too much and that it was just a part of the Finnish woman’s personality and coping mechanism. She was going to have a good talk with her best friend. 

The plane ride back to London was long and her body still hurt like a bitch but was glad she made it when she was greeted by her fiance, who hugged her softly, whispering dirty words into her ear. Grinning when Kody goes red and stutters her words. “Love you, Kody.”

“Not as much as I love you Elena,” Kody says firmly kissing her on the lips, hands resting on her hips. “Let's get home, I really miss those losers.”

“And they missed your home-cooked meals.”

Kody chuckles at that, grinning from ear to ear.

When they arrived at the base, Apollo was the first to arrive, hugging her tightly. She had a soft smile as she looked up at her. “Welcome home.”

“Thanks, Thai sauce.”

Apollo rolls her eyes as the rest of the crew comes out and greets her. Sharing all kinds of jokes and hugs. Mozzie being the first to ask when she was going to start cooking again. Tori had to slap him in the back of the head, which made Kody laugh hard and she had to clench her stomach. The group yelled at him which only made her laugh harder. 

Kody couldn’t help but notice the absence of her best friend.

~~~

After Elena and Finka forced her to sit down with Doc and get evaluated, she searched the base for Karhu, finding her alone on the track on the base. Slowly jogging against the cold wind. She stands in the middle of the track as she comes around the bend towards her. She slows her pace and stops seven feet away from her. “So, is there a reason you’re avoiding Thaila? I understand why me, but Thaila? That’s cruel. You know she sees you as her big sister.”

Karhu says nothing and just stares at her.

“I know how much self-hating you're doing right now. I know it's a problem when you won’t even sleep with Jai and she tells me about it.” Kody continues, “I know that my actions hurt you a lot, I know that the fear of your emotions is driving you at the moment but it’ll be okay Eryka. It’s okay to let people in.” 

Karhu drops her gaze to the ground, making Kody tilt her head to the side. 

“It hurt.” Karhu finally manages. “It hurt watching you willingly fall into nothingness… because I saw you unclasp yourself and grab Apollo and just hug her tightly, accepting death, so unafraid of it… my entire world came crashing down Kody.”

Kody hears her voice crack when she says her name. She walks over to the Finnish woman and wraps her arms around her waist, she begins to feel the tall woman’s body tremble in her arms as Karhu wrapped her strong arms around Kody and hugged her tight. She ignored the pain that she felt from it and melted into the embrace of her best friend. When Kody pulls back, she rests a hand on the woman's cheek. Karhu looked down at her as tears rolled down her cheek. “Why am I so afraid of losing you when you're not even mine?”

“Because I’m awesome.”

Karhu shakes her head laughing, brushing away the tears from her face. “Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that.”

“You have someone to apologize to Eryka and you’re lucky she’s very fond of you and will accept it before you say it.” Kody turns and walks back towards the base, leaving Karhu to think about everything. 

~~~

Karhu found the small Greek woman sitting in the gym watching her girlfriend working out with the others while also doodling in her notebook. She walked slowly up the steps to where she was sitting and sat next to her. They didn’t say anything for five minutes. Karhu held the metal deer in her hand, letting it give her that last boost of confidence she needed. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Forgiven.”

“Apollo, you didn’t even let me beg.”

The girl shrugs as she continues to draw. “We all have our ways to cope with things. Sure, I’m a wee bit upset that you didn’t come and see me at that hell site once i got out but I'll get over it.”

“I feel bad Thaila. I let myself be controlled by fear and I ignored you when you needed me the most. At least call me a bitch or punch me, do something.”

Apollo sighs as she looks up from her notebook to stare at her. “I won’t do that Eryka. I love you and I forgive you. You needed some time to be angry at the world. Now you are okay and we can continue our friendship.”

“Like nothing happened?”

“Did I ever tell you about Kyril?” Apollo cuts her off from her thought.

“No, I - I don’t think you did.”

“Kyril was an old blind man that lived on my home island. He wasn’t homeless but he was familyless. He didn’t beg for pity or for any charity. He was a kind man. Gentle and generous. He gave me shelter and love and kindness when my foster parents did not. I was always curious about what it was like to be blind. Wondered if it’d be a better life than what I was given.”

“So one day I asked if he knew colours were. I still remember very clearly what he said, ‘ _I've never seen them, but in my old mind the colour yellow would feel like the warm rays of sunshine. And colour green, I would like to imagine, is what covers the soft ground of grass in an empty meadow; the colour red could only be the call of sirens and horns, and I could have sworn that I felt the calm of the colour blue in the waters of the Aegean.’_.” She says as she sketches in her book, an old man sitting on a stool holding a cane. “I felt bad for him. For him missing out on the brightness of our world, the beauty.”

Karhu sat in silence as she drew and told her story, watching as she etched this man perfectly from memory. 

“He was a smart man, he caught onto things quickly. He could sense feelings. He continued to say to me, ‘ _I may not have the gift of sight, but I am thankful to be spared the blackness that engulfs the world at night. Although I cannot distinguish the dark from the light, I can still tell wrong from right. I can hear the hidden tones in music that most people cannot and sometimes I swear, I can actually see the wind. Do not feel bad for a silly old blind man, my sweet Thaila. You see the world for what it is… while I see it for what it could be.’_ Kyril died two days later in his sleep. A peaceful way for a peaceful man. He taught me that the gods are not always fair amongst their creations.”

“Thaila…”

“He was born blind, I grew up alone, Lera was born with neuropathy. We got some bad luck while others got good luck, Kody got a nice family with five brothers for example. If you live your life being petty and unforgiveness then it is a lonely life.”

Karhu sits in silence as she watches IQ and Ash spar. Apollo finishes her sketch and shows it to Karhu. 

“It’s like that buddha guy said, ''It's during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” Thaila says staring into her eyes, “I’ll be your light at the end of the tunnel Eryka, always.”

“Have you always been like this?”

Apollo shrugs as she flips through her notebook and tears out a page and hands it to her. “I suppose so. I never really have to do heart to hearts like these so.”

Karhu takes the page and sees a sketch of herself and Kody. “Thaila, this is amazing. Thank you.”

“Kody is your best friend, don’t push her away.”

“Thanks, kid.” Karhu stands up and walks down the steps, turning to look at the girl. “I love you too Thaila.”

When Karhu disappears from sight, Apollo lets out a large breath of relief and rubs the tears from her eyes. She sat in silence for another twenty minutes, staring dreamily at her girlfriend. Eventually, Apollo stood up and walked down the steps and met the gaze of her girlfriend who put her weights down to jog over. 

“Everything went okay?”

“Yea, I think so,” Apollo said as her girlfriend’s fingers touched the still-healing scar on her right brow. “I think I’m going to take a nap, I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, I love you,” Finka says as she gives a soft kiss to her girlfriend. 

“Love you too, Lera.”

Apollo began her walk back towards Finka’s room, stopping for a moment when she saw Karhu and Kody sitting together in the kitchen as Kody talked about cooking and Erkya teased her relentlessly about her passion. She smiles to herself as she continues her walk.

For the first time in a week since the mission, Apollo fell asleep quickly and stayed asleep for almost twelve hours. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IncorrectValk.tumblr.com


	5. Where is the quiet piece of home where I could breathe?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone gets the strap

“Lera, can you give me the strap?”

The question startles Finka, choking on her drink and knocking items over on her desk as she turns to look at her girlfriend, wiping her mouth. “Wh-what?”

“I want you to give me the strap.”

Lera laughs softly, “Buha tell you to ask this?”

Apollo walks over to her girlfriend, moving to sit in her lap. Finka sighs and her hands drop to her ass, holding her up. “Crow was cracking jokes about Eryka and Kody using this strap thing… I asked what it was and nobody responded, but Buha suggested I ask you, so here I am.”

Finka hums lightly against the woman’s kisses. “Do you even know what it is babe?”

“No… but I'm sure I’ll enjoy it.”

“Baby…” She pulls back, hands reaching up to cup her girlfriend’s cheeks, “A strap is literally a plastic dick on a harness that one wears…”

“Oh.” Apollo says, a slight blush to her cheeks, “I still would like.”

“Thai…”

“Please _Kounéli_... “ Apollo pouts, running her fingers through her girl’s hair, her mouth returns her neck, sloppy kisses tracing down to the red-haired woman’s collarbone. “Don’t you want to ravish me… pleasure me.”

Finka can’t fight the feeling in her stomach as Apollo strings along some words in Greek, words she assumes are very dirty. She slips her hands underneath the greek's thighs, standing up and hefting her girl up like nothing. “How dare you assume I wouldn't want to ravish you _lisa_.”

Apollo nibbled at her ear as she was carried from the small office to their bedroom. She carefully lows the smaller girl down onto the bed, kissing her softly as her hands travel up the girl's shirt. When she pulls back to pull her shirt off, Apollo licks her lips. Her hand travels down her pants as she stares up at the taller woman’s breasts.

Finka smirks as she pushes her pants and underwear down and kicks them away, her hands tugging down Apollo’s sweats. “Impatient? I thought you wanted me to ravish you, but here you are, touching yourself…”

Apollo doesn’t say anything as Lera stops her hand movement, pulling her fingers from her heat. “My job.”

Apollo hums softly, pulling her shirt off, tossing it to the side to join the rest of their clothes, “Well I’m waiting?” 

Finka rolls her eyes as she lowers her lips to Apollo’s, kissing her softly before tracing down her neck, down her to breasts, taking one of her nipples into her mouth, gently sucking at it before giving the same attention to the other. Finka kisses down her stomach, kissing her belly button gently before she drops to her knees, bringing her mouth to Apollo’s wet center.

She doesn’t waste time slipping her tongue between her wet folds, moaning at the taste of her girl. She wastes no time to slip her tongue inside and picking up a steady rhythm, her fingers rubbing at Apollo’s clit, making the smaller girl moan loudly, her hand going to the back of Finka’s head to push her closer. 

Finka softly kisses her inner thighs as Apollo rolls through her orgasm, her chest rising and falling in such a way that makes the redhead smile. Apollo’s small hands reach out for her girl's face, pulling her into a heated kiss. 

When Finka finally pulls back, she looks down at her girl with a smile. “You still want to try it?”

Apollo stares up at her, she nods and a playful smile appears on her lips. “You actually have one?”

“Yes.”

“Buha owes Crow a few bucks,” Apollo says as she watches her girlfriend walk over to a dresser, she stares at her ass as the redhead bends down, fishing through the drawer. “I like this view…”

Finka snorts as she turns around holding the harness. Apollo pushes herself up onto her elbows, a brow raised as her eyes glossed over the toy in her hand. “That is something… was it used on you?”

“No... “ Finka says, stepping in between her legs. “I don’t want to talk about the last person… I only care about you.” 

Apollo sits up, her hands rubbing Finka’s legs as the woman equips the harness. Her eyes flicker to the toy as her girlfriend secures it in place. “Kinda bigger than I expected…”

“Mhmm.” Finka mumbles, “it's going to hurt a bit more than my fingers, I’ll stop at any given moment when needed. Are you still sure?”

“Yes, Lera. Destroy me.”

The older woman smirks and pushes her girl back down onto the bed, moving to hover over her, a hand by the younger girl’s head while the other one goes to the base of the toy, guiding it towards Thaila’s entrance. Finka’s eyes are glued to her lover's face as she pushes the head of the toy inside, Apollo gasps, a hand grabbing the arm by her head.

“Fuck.”

Finka stills for a moment, looking down at her before pushing more of the toy inside. Apollo is biting her lip as every inch slips deeper inside, another moment of stillness. “You okay baby?”

Apollo nods, saying something incoherent in Greek, Lera knows enough to understand that the smaller girl is urging her on. Finka began a slow rhythm, watching her girl’s face the entire time. Apollo begins to let out a string of whimpers before begging for the taller woman to pick up her rhythm. 

Lera leans down and captures her girl’s lips. Apollo pulls her on top of her, her leg hooking behind Finka’s, making the redhead smirk into the kiss. “You’re really enjoying this huh?”

Apollo moans at the sudden hard thrust, her eyes opening lazily to look into green. “It feels really good, so… filling. I love you Lera.”

Finka can’t help the blush that comes to her cheeks as she tucks her head into the smaller girl's neck as she picks up her rhythm, loving every soft whimper and moan that escaped from underneath. She nipped and sucked at her throat, leaving her mark as Apollo met her second orgasm of the day, scratching hard down Lera’s back as she came loudly. 

Finka hums softly as Apollo’s hot breath brushes past her ear. She pulls up from the embrace and stands up pulling Thaila to her feet. “Lera?”

“I want you on my lap, I want to watch you as you ride the toy.”

Apollo turns red as she watches Finka goes to the end of the bed, sitting down against the headboard, a small grin on her lips. “Come on _malieńkaja lisa_ , Ride me.”

The string words only turn Apollo on more as she steps onto the bed and walks over to stand above her. Finka stares lovingly up at her girl. The Greek slowly lowers herself down, Finka guiding her hips above the toy, watching carefully as the toy disappears into the smaller woman, moans slipping out every few seconds. Apollo’s hands gripping the older woman's shoulders as it fills her up completely. 

“Fuck.”

Finka strokes her cheek, pushing a strand of black hair back behind the girl's ear. “You’re doing so good baby. Just rock slowly okay?” 

She follows the instructions clearly, the sensation hit spots that she never knew she had and she could feel her lover’s eyes on her, which urged her on. She leans back to place her hands on Finka’s legs to hold herself up, rocking her hips hard against the toy. The older woman’s hands are on her hips, guiding each movement, softly whispering words of encouragement at every rock of her hips. “Lera… fucking… fuck.”

Lera leans forward and pulls her girl into her arms, mouth kissing her breasts as Thaila’s hands go to her head, fingers tangling into her hair as she rides out her orgasm, eyes shut tightly as Finka nips as the skin around her nipples. 

“You’re so beautiful…” Lera whispers as the sun shines through the window, lighting up the perfect patches of Apollo’s olive skin. “I fucking love you Thaila.”

Thaila drops her hands to cup Finka’s face, leaning down to kiss the bridge of her nose than the end of the scar. “ _O ílios mou, se agapó pánta._ ” She captures her lips for another kiss, biting at the taller woman’s bottom lip. 

When Finka pulls up, she’s lost in the cool blue of Apollo’s eyes, she didn’t mean to let it slip but she couldn’t help it. “Thaila... Marry me.”

Apollo just stares down at her girl, fingers brushing past her ear. 

Finka closes her eyes, looking away at the pause, cursing her dumb self when she feels a finger under her chin, pulling her gaze back. “Of course I’ll marry you Lera.”

Her heart skips and a grin erupts to her lips as Apollo smiles down at her, exactly the way a fox would smile. Lera wraps a wrap around her girl’s waist and lifts her up and lays her on her back, dropping her weight on top of her as she thrusts her hips, capturing Apollo’s moans into a kiss as she finds a perfect pace, her thrusts are fast but careful as the smaller girl arches her back up into her lover, moans picking up in volume at every thrust of the toy. 

Finka can’t help but kiss her Fiance, as she brought her towards her fourth orgasm. The smaller girl is grinning against the kiss, a giggle escaping when they pull apart for a second to stare into each other eyes. “I love you Lera Melnikovia.”

“Nah,” She whispers, choosing her words carefully, “Lera Kostas.”

Apollo swears she melted at the sentiment, “Really?”

“Yes Thai, It would be an honour to take your name… I love you.” Lera trails kisses up her neck until she finds her girl's lips again. 

When Finka pulls back to look down at the smaller girl, Thaila’s fingers trace over her lips, “I never thought I'd fall in love… I’m glad I found you Lera.”

“Same too you, My little Fox.”

“Now, if you would kindly remove this thing and cuddle me, that’d be appreciated.” 

Lera chuckles at that, kissing her cheek before shifting her weight to pull the toy out from Apollo and pulling it off her hips. She drops it to the floor and pulls the girl into her chest, holding her tightly.

“I bet this isn’t how you wanted to ask…”

“No,” Finka admits, “I wanted to take you back to Greece, visit all these sites that you rave on about all the time. Have a nice picnic-like dinner and as we watch the sunset pull the ring out and ask you… I had a whole speech planned out but the way the sun shined on you just then, I couldn’t wait until we got time to finally take a vacation.” 

Apollo kisses the soft skin of Finka’s chest, “That would’ve been a nice story yes but I feel like this is better, how we were lost in the moment, in the real… I love you Lera.”

“I love you Thaila.”

The smaller girl moves closer into the embrace, eyes closed as her soft breaths brush across Finka’s shoulders as exhaustion takes over and she falls asleep in the arms of her love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> incorrectvalkyrie.tumblr.com


	6. 'Cause the devil is raging inside my mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apollo thinks about her past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the main point at the beginning is about another fic I posted, The Fox and The Crow, if you wanna check that out first (if you want of course!
> 
> anyway, Enjoy it!

Thorne walks into the room that Dokkaebi classifies as her ‘inner sanctum’, shaking her head at the way it looks. A real 2007 hacker paradise. Thorne walks over to where the Korean woman and Romain man sat, bickering over something that she had no interest in, dropping the shattered phone on the desk. “Fix.”

Dokkaebi looks up, pushing her glasses up the brim of her nose. “Hello Mizuki, do you talk to Siu like that?”

“Like what?” She frowns, “My mouth? Because yes, I do.”

Buha chuckles as he picks up the phone, flipping it over in his hands. “I’d wanna help but Luke might see this as a betrayal during this trying time.”

“The prank war can wait,” Thorne says, her voice firm. Buha raises a brow in question. “I need it fixed now.”

Dokkaebi hums softly, taking the phone from the man. “What happened to it?”

“Crow threw it at a wall.”

“Why?”

“Because of what was on it.” Thorne says, “Just, can you fix it or not?”

“Yea, of course, we can, it’ll take a bit though.” Buha says, “Why don’t you go bug Siu, she’s been texting me non stop, she’ll distract me from getting it done.”

“Very well… do hurry.”

An hour passes when Thorne returns, her clothes a bit off, and a visible hickey on her neck. Buha smirks at her while Dokkaebi shakes her head. “Have fun?”

“Perhaps.” Thorne eyes the german man who is sitting by the two, “Elias.”

He stares at her, not saying anything which bugs her but she says nothing. The Korean woman nudges her head towards the monitor. “We just about finished retrieving the data.”

“I asked for the phone to be fixed.”

“There was no way to fix that.” Buha says, “Crow smashed the fucking shit out of it. Cap must’ve been angry.”

“Hmmm.”

Thorne crosses her arms as she stares at the computer screen, waiting for whatever it was to finish. A tab on the screen pops up and it starts to play the video. Thorne thinks to tell them to stop the video but she doesn’t. The four sit in silence as the full video plays out, Thorne sees Buha get upset, she could feel the anger radiate off of him in waves. Dokkaebi was hard to read, as usual, she watched in silence. Blitz watched in disgust, anger, and Thorne could swear she sensed fear roll off him. 

“You knew of this, didn’t you?” He asks, standing up from his chair, “You and crow knew this child was a monster! And you didn’t tell us?”

“Elias, shut your mouth.” Buha snaps, “Don’t talk about her like that.” 

“You can’t see what’s right in front of you! You may only have one eye but I thought you’d be smart.” Blitz shouts standing up, “The team needs to see this now!”

“No.” Thorne says, “It will go to Six and he shall decide what to do with it.”

“Nien!” Blitz says he knows they will fight him on it so he moves quickly, punching Buha in the jaw, stunning him. He pushes Dokkaebi hard enough that her chair flips over and she lands hard onto her back. He rushes at the computer, Thorne tries to stop him but Elias easily tosses her aside. 

“Elias!” Dokkaebi and Thorne shout as they scramble back to their feet, rushing to stop him but it's too late as he forwards the video to everyone on team rainbow. “What did you do you fucking asshole!”

Thorne turns and rushes out the room, behind her she hears Buha scream something before there's a sound of stuff being knocked down and breaking. Thorne runs straight towards the common room, stopping in her tracks when she sees half of the team peering down at their phones, watching the video. Apollo stands still, her eyes glancing at everyone, Thorne sees the panic in her eyes as Crow places a hand on her shoulder. 

Apollo flinches back, shrugging her handoff. She whispers something before turning and running out of the room. Crow shoots a look over at the Japanese woman and Thorne signs out that it was Blitz, the gaze grew dark as she pushed her way past her peers and past Thorne, heading directly towards where the man was. 

Mizuki curses herself for letting this happen as she lets herself fall into another stage of silence. 

~~

Apollo sprints down the hallway towards the medbay, she had to reach Finka before she started that video, to explain or to stop her, she just knew that if she sees it, it would change everything. She pushes open the door, coming to a stop when she sees Finka, Doc, Apex, and Dingo staring at the computer screen. Her breath hitches and she can hear her heart beating, feeling it in her ears as her eyes fall to her Fiance’s face.

Apollo stares in fear as she looks at her, the redhead is making a face that Thalia couldn’t register. Her mind floods with fear and bad thoughts as they finally notice her standing in the doorway. Finka's eyes are staring at her with a certain look that the smaller girl couldn't read, she loses herself in the green sea of her eyes before noticing that someone had gotten close. Apollo flinches back, tripping over herself and landing hard on her tailbone. Doc is saying something that doesn't make it past the white noise in her skull, Finka still has the look on her face as she makes eye contact with her fiance, she says something that doesn’t reach the smaller girl. Apollo stands up quickly, turning and running out of the room.

Finka jumps to her feet and races after her, trying to catch up with her. Following her through the halls, calling her name out. Apollo runs outside the building's front door, no sense to slow down and stop, full sprint down the entrance. Finka tries to keep going but she stops, coughing to catch her breath, dropping to her knee, hand pulling at her shirt as she calls once more to her girlfriend. 

“THALIA!”

Finka watches as the smaller girl disappears into the distance, running at a speed that she’s never seen before. Behind her Kody, Crow, and Valkyrie come running out, a worried look on their faces. 

“I’ll go get my bike, try and catch up,” Crow says, turning to head towards the garage. 

“She’s already gone.” Finka whispers, head in her hands. “She would’ve run into the woods… she knows how to hide her tracks, lose a tail. We’re going to have to rather wait for her to come back or send out a search party.”

“Then the search party it is.” Crow says, turning to her best friend, “Kody, get the team together and off their asses, I’m going to get Axew. Meghan... “

“I got Lera, go.” 

Crow watches her girlfriend for a second, seeing her crouch down beside the red-haired girl, rubbing her back in small circles, whispering something calmly into her ear. The ghost turns and runs back into the building and towards the lab.

She grabs her drone out of its place inside Kody’s office, so glad that Kody had offered to keep it safe inside her office for her. She rushes back up the stairs and towards the front doors, to see the entire team there, a few of them in their pajamas but ready to go looking. 

“No Elias huh?” Crow asks, walking to stand next to Kody, “And no Danut… for fuck's sake.”

“They’re both handcuffed to a bed in the infirmary.” Apex updates, an annoyed look on her face as she tosses her braid behind her back. “They’re both going to get suspended, Harry’s had it with Buha picking fights with Elias.”

Crow lets out a long sigh but shakes her head. “That’s a problem for later, We need to find Thalia…”

Kody and Karhu are talking to the team, splitting them up into groups and assigning them areas to search. 

“Why are we going out looking for Thalia?” Kali asks in a sigh, “She’s a grown woman, she should be able to find her way home.”

“From what Finka and Apex have said I believe Apollo is in a sort of trance. She is not aware of what’s going on around her and letting her body and mind guide her movement. We need to find her before she hurts herself or wakes up and seriously hurts someone .”

Kali scoffs at the whole thing making Kody a bit angry that Karhu had to place a hand on her shoulder. “If you don't care about her then just go back inside Jai.”

“Getting her to speak for you now Ammerati?” Kali mutters, crossing her arms with a look of annoyance. “Can’t do anything yourself.”

“Jai, you’re dismissed.” Kody snaps and turns away, walking towards Finka and Valkyrie. Karhu shakes her head at her ex, a bit of disappointment and a bit of disbelief before following the Italian.

The team stands in silence, watching Kali turn and walk back inside of the base, she turns and looks at Wamai, who shrugs. “I do care about the girl…”

Within a few minutes the groups split up and head out in their assigned locations, all ready for a long night. Crow closes the visor on her helmet, revs the engine on her bike, and speeds off in a certain direction that she suspects the girl to go. 

~~~

The cold water of the ocean surrounding her shocks her awake. Apollo just floats there under the water, the salt burning her eyes as she takes in her surroundings. It is only when her lungs begin to burn, begging for oxygen does she slowly pull herself up to the surface, taking in a deep breath and swimming to the shore, walking up the beach before turning and dropping onto her back to stare up at the stars. Her eyes tracing each constellation and thinking about each story that her mother and Kyril used to tell her. 

She lays in silence for a few moments, listening to the waves of the water, the bugs and creatures around her, letting it fog her brain and distract her as she lets herself be pulled into her gruesome memories.

~~

November 18 2016, [Redacted, Kithira, Greece] 11:46pm

Aleksanteri Galanis stood tall, watching his team take a position upon the cliff. There’s a bitter taste in his mouth at what he and his men are planning to do. In the distance he sees the signal that the contact agreed upon. Aleksanteri strings out a few words and his team begin to move forward towards the contact. 

The older man watches as Obasi, Hackett, and Taneli slow they’re pace, falling behind Thaila. The tallest man turns back to look at his captain, who gives a nod as he tries to hide his disgust. Aleksanteri watches Taneli quicken his pace, whispering for the girl to stop. When she does, she turns to look at him only to receive the butt of his gun to her jaw.

Thalia falls to the earth hard, her gun clanking on the ground. The group of men groups up, hovering over the small woman. Hackett looks up at his team captain. “Sir, are you sure we should go with this? Isn’t there another way?”

“I wish there was but… it’s a command from above.” Aleksanteri scratches his beard, watching as Obasi and Taneli begin to unequip the unconscious girls' armor and equipment. Obasi drops his hands to her pants, only to get smacked in the head by his captain. “What do you think you’re doing? Step away now!” Obasi sulks away, standing at a distance as the contact comes closer. 

The contact was an old man, probably in his mid-seventies but looked like he was in his late fifties. His posture was good, voice steady… like the main villain in any kind of hero’s story. Aleksanteri watched as the old man’s guards dragged along the kidnap victim, who seemed to be wearing clothes drenched in their blood and piss. Taneli secures the zip ties on the smaller girl's wrists and ankles before stepping away, ready to take the hostage. Hackett looks back at his captain, looking for any sign to cancel the plan and take both the hostage and Thaila home, but he receives no sign and he stares down at the ground in anger.

The old man’s goons toss the hostage forward and he lands in a heap with a loud grunt, they walk towards the girl and heft her up and over one of the men’s shoulders. “A great pleasure doing business with the lovely men of EKAM. I hope you said your goodbyes because well, you’ll never see her again.” 

Hackett’s head shoots up, anger burning his eyes “What are you going to do with her?!”

“Floros, back down!” Galanis commands, his voice has a slight tremble in it as a helicopter starts to fly in, landing behind the old man and his goons. 

“Captain… we can’t… she’s my…” 

“I know son.” Galanis says, his eyes glazed, “Orders are orders.”

Hackett turns and walks away, gripping his weapon a bit too tightly as his teammates follow behind him, carefully carrying the hostage, trying not to take in the smell that is drenched on the man. 

Aleksanteri Galanis stands still, watching as the helicopter rises into the sky, turning and flying off into the distance. “I’m so sorry Thaila… Gods protect you…”

~~~

November 19, 2016 - 2:18 am

When Thaila wakes, her head is pounding and the room spins. When she tries to move her hands, she finds herself restrained to a metal chair. “Fuck… Obasi… you fucking dick…”

The room is dark and it makes it hard to see anything but Thaila is quick to discover that it was some kind of torture room, she could sense two people in the room with her. There’s shuffling and someone speaking in what she assumes was Persian. Thaila gets a better look at them, an old man in a lab coat and a young woman also in a lab coat. 

The old man picks up two items off of the table by his side and walks towards her, As he gets closer Thaila is quick to notice that it was a syringe and a small glass bottle. “What… what are you doing.”

“Oh no worries child, I’m just going to use you as a lab rat.” 

Before Thaila could fully respond to the statement, the old man slides the needle into her vein and pushes the liquid inside. He smirks down at her before turning away and walking to the woman that Thaila deemed his assistant, insane jr. 

At first, nothing happened, she sat in silence while in a hazy state, staring daggers into the old man, watching as he flipped papers around the desk. Then all at once, she felt a shock through her body. Her fingers stretched out before curling slowly back into fists, she tried cracking her neck, eyes clenched shut as she grunts and groans trying to fight the restraints. “Let me go…” 

Insane Jr. says something Persian, stepping forward towards her. “Why would we do that?”

“Let me go and I’ll let you live!”

“Let us live? You have no power here Thaila Kostas.”

“My team will come for me!” Thaila shouts, shifting in the chair as if she tried to jump out at him, “When they get me out your- AHH” Thaila tosses her head back in a grunt of pain, she can feel her heart racing, the anger riling up inside, she glares over at the old man, “What did you give me? TELL ME!”

“That is none of your concern.” He says, turning away from her and towards the door of the room. “Get the boys to put her in isolation chamber Three. Give her a dose every few hours and perhaps let the boys have a few punches.” Insane Jr. nods as the old man leaves the room.

“Don’t listen to that wrinkly ball sack, c'mon… let me out, we can get out of here!” Apollo tries, trying to see if there was any sign of being held against her will… there wasn’t. Instead the woman pushes a mouth guard into her mouth and rips a piece of duct tape, slapping across her mouth. Apollo mumbles something against the mouth guard and duct tape. 

The woman steps back as she senses the anger radiating through the small girl's body. “Well, the dose seems to already be working… I guess the smaller the subject the easier it is for the chemicals to work. Such a perfect subject.” Thaila fights against the reistants again, the mumbling becoming louder as she glares daggers at insane jr. 

Three men walk into the room and over to the smaller girl, all taking an edge of the chair and lifting her up, holding firm as she struggles in place, trying to get them to drop her. “Have a good few hours in isolation Thaila Kostas, I’ll be seeing you.” 

5:29 am

Thaila was starting to go crazy inside the darkroom, her limbs cried out for any kind of freedom. It had been three hours since the old man had injected her with something, Thaila suspected it was what made her angry, made her heart race… and she did not like that feeling, not one bit. 

The door to the room opened, making the small girl close her eyes and glance away from the sudden brightness as she listened to the sound of heels clicking against the cold concrete floor. “Hello again Thaila, it’s time for your second shot.”

Thaila shuffled, keeping herself from being still, Insane Jr. growled and called for someone. A man walked it, Thaila noted the dark skin with the greasy black hair, a scar on his left cheek, he walked over with a grunt and punched Thaila hard in the gut before clasping her throat in his arm, squeezing roughly as she stilled her movements, staring the doctor in the eyes as she felt the needle slide into her vein and push the cold liquid into her system. 

“Don’t look like that poor old Thaila.” Insane Jr sighs, “This is good for you! You’ll be thanking us for it… that is if you survive of course.”

The woman begins to giggle as she turns and walks out the room, Thaila feels the rage flood her system once again as she struggles in her seat, biting hard into the mouth guard as the door slams shut and leaves her in the darkness. 

11:22pm

Thaila is wide awake, her body is pulsing with rage and energy as she continues to fight the resistance on her limbs. She can hear herself growling now like she's some kind of mad dog. They had injected her about five times and each time the rage, the urge to kill only seemed to grow. 

The door opened again and three men walked in, one carried handcuffs that he slapped onto her wrists before they released the restraints on her wrists and legs, hauling her onto her feet. Thaila tries to fight their grip but finds she can't wiggle out of their grip. 

“Let us test our work, hmm?” The old man’s voice calls out as she’s tossed forward, falling into the hard concrete, the sound of a metal gate slamming shut behind. “Stand up and show me, show me what Kyril saw in you!”

“Kyril? Apollo whispers to herself as she stands up, she tries to see her surroundings but it's clasped in darkness. “How do you know Kyril?!” 

“Questions will be answered later, Kostas. But for now, Fight! Show me your worth!” 

The room around her lights up brightly, Thalia covers her eyes with her hands as she tries to get a better look at her surroundings. She found herself in a fighting cage, the walls reached ten feet off the ground. Thalia’s eyes fell to the man at the other side of the cage, a man twice her size, buffed up so much his veins were practically popping from his neck. 

The man, Thaila deems Cheeto, steps forward and an angry look on his face and she’s quick to come to the conclusion that the man is definitely what she is on, only longer. “We don’t need to fight.” 

Cheeto growls as he approaches. 

“Calm down, we can just resist!”

Cheeto doesn’t understand as he charges at her, to which she ducks down and rolls away. Cheeto didn’t like that as he shouted something incoherently and started swinging his fists manically. Thaila dodged them easy, refusing to fight back the entire time. The small woman stumbles for a second and Cheeto takes advantage, his heavy fist meets her jaw and she drops down hard, her head spinning as she tries to push herself up to her feet but finds the world spinning around her.

“Now this is just disappointing Kostas!” The old man’s voice calls out, “Maybe Kyril was wrong about you… maybe he wasted four years on you! A pure disappointment!”

Thaila wanted so badly to something, to shout at him to shut up but couldn’t raise her head off the ground, she closes her eyes for a split second and loses all sense of reality. 

2008

The hollow stick smacks Thaila in the head, she drops to her knee as she looks up at the old blind man, who stands tall, one hand behind his back and the other lightly tapping the ground with the hollow bamboo stick. “You are faltering, throwing your punches!”

“I - Kyril you’re blind I didn’t want to-” She says looking up at him, the rain had begun to soak through her shirt and give her chills.

“Just because I am blind doesn’t mean I don't know how to fight! I can see things others cannot, besides this light rain does certainly help radiate your small stature. “ Thaila huffs, muttering something under her breath as Kyril smacks her with the stick again. “On your feet, into the form.”

Thaila follows his orders, standing up and getting into a fighting stance. She licks her lips as she waits for his surprise movement. So when Kyril swings the stick she deflects it and steps forward throwing a punch. He dodges easily, a small smirk on his lips as Thaila continues to throw punches at him. Kyril swings around the stick in unexpected ways that the small girl can’t seem to pick up.

There’s a swing at her legs, she falls. A swing to her gut, she falls back. A swing to her head, she falls down. A process that repeats for days to come but with each hit a new reflex grows. 

Three Months pass when she finally masters Kyril’s fighting training. 

They stand in his yard. Eight feet apart. There was a slight breeze, making a small shiver roll up her back as Kyril smiles at her. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Kyril holds up a foam ball, he underhand throws it into the air and Thaila sprints, jumping to grab it, when she lands on the ground again she twists her body and pushes herself up off the ground again, with all the force she has, she whips it at Kyril who barely gets the deflect off. Thaila is in front of him in seconds, throwing punches and kicks.

Kyril blocks them all easily. He swings the hollow stick towards her, she ducks and punches into his side. Kyril smirks as he shifts and kicks her in the shin. Thalia drops down to a knee for a split second before she then rolls back. Staring up at the old man for a split second before charging at him, dodging the swing of his stick and the kicks of his legs. She ducks down, her back on the ground, dodging the stick. She’s arked awkwardly on the ground but takes advantage of the situation and kicks upwards, meeting him in his gut. He falls, almost slipping. 

“Good Thalia!” 

Thaila jumps to her feet, still in a fighting stance as he charges at her, swinging the stick madly. She jumps to dodge low swings, ducks for high spins to dodge side swings. There is no hesitation in her movements as they fight. Every strike hits its mark as she finally kicks the stick from his hand, she kicks out his lag and as he drops, Thaila swings a fist, stopping just at his jaw. 

Kyril smiles up at her, a smile so warm and kind that Thaila can’t help but return. She helps him to his feet, watching as he brushes the dirt off his clothes. 

“You did amazing Thaila. I don’t think there's much left to teach you, you’ve completely mastered my technique. I am so proud... “ Kyril reaches out, cupping the girl's face. “We may not be related but you are my granddaughter Thaila.”

“And you are my grandfather Kyril.” 

He pulls the girl in for a hug, he whispers something in her, another language that she had no clue what it was when they part he smiles down at her. “Come, join me.”

He leads her to the cliff edge behind his house, they sit on the bench that overlooks the forest and out to the ocean. They sit in silence for maybe twenty minutes before Thaila finally looks over at him, curiosity dripping in her words. 

“Do you know what colours are?”

Kyril laughs, a laugh straight from his gut. He scratches at his beard and keeps his gaze out to the ocean. “I've never seen them, but in my old mind the colour yellow would feel like the warm rays of sunshine. And colour green, I would like to imagine, is what covers the soft ground of grass in an empty meadow; the colour red could only be the call of sirens and horns, and I could have sworn that I felt the calm of the colour blue in the waters of the Aegean.”

“Oh.” She whispers softly, he turns his head to look at her, sensing something he gives her a small smile. 

“I may not have the gift of sight, but I am thankful to be spared the blackness that engulfs the world at night. Although I cannot distinguish the dark from the light, I can still tell wrong from right. I can hear the hidden tones in music that most people cannot and sometimes I swear, I can actually see the wind. Do not feel bad for a silly old blind man, my sweet Thaila. You see the world for what it is… while I see it for what it could be.” 

“Kyril…”

“Thaila you are still young, still so much to learn, to see!” Kyril grins at her, “There is a storm in the distance for you young Thaila, it's going to bring you to your knees and try to rip you apart but you must promise me to not to give up! You must fight through the tide because there is a bright future that rises up on the horizon. Can you promise me that young Thaila?”

“Yes, Kyril. I promise.” 

_ Two days later _

Thaila jogs down the road towards Kyril’s house, excited to tell him about her day at school. As she reaches his driveway she slows down, the smile dropping from her face as she sees cops and paramedics walking out of the front door. 

“Ky...ril…” Thaila whispers, her bag drops to the ground as she starts to sprint up the driveway. The cops yell at her to stop as she approaches, Thaila’s eyes flick over to the nurse. 

“She’s okay, she is family.” Her voice is quiet, sad and it's then that Thaila understands. 

“How?”

“Natural causes. He went in his sleep.”

Thalia’s gaze drops to the ground as it sinks in. The nurse reaches out for her but she steps back, her mouth open to say some but nothing comes out, she turns and books it down the driveway, not bothering to grab her bag as she disappears. 

Present 

Thaila stands up, her hands are balled up into fists as the old man continues to rant about Kyril. She could feel the rage boiling her blood as Cheeto huffs and puffs. 

“Kill her! Prove your worth to me!”

Cheeto grunts and begins to run towards Thaila, but she was no longer in control of her body or her thoughts. She lets him get close, using her height to her advantage, she punches his knee and when he drops she wraps around his neck and easily snaps his neck. Cheeto drops to the ground with a loud thump. Thaila looks up to where the old man was perched, looking down at her with a giant grin, grinning because he got exactly what he wanted. 

The gate behind her opens and four of his goons walk inside as he begins to laugh. “Your mind is so easy to break into young Thaila… Kyril really was an old blind man.” The men grab her and pull her from the caged room, Thaila tried to fight them off but couldn’t. 

  
  


November 20th, 6:21 am

Thaila finds herself once again staring at the old man, though her vision is blurrier than before. He’s speaking in Persian to Insane jr, flicking the needle before sliding it into the small girl’s veins. 

Thalia immediately grips the arms of the chair as the cold liquid floods her bloodstream. She screams into the mouth guard, trying her hardest to try and escape, She’s cursing the man and he just grins down at her.

“See you again in a few.” 

The old man turns and walks out the room, insane jr gives a devilish smile as she slams the door behind her and turns out the lights, leaving Thaila in the dark, screaming into the mouth guard. 

  
  


2:42 pm

Thaila was still struggling in the chair when the door opened again, the bright light doesn’t bother her anymore as Insane Jr. enters, her stupid smile only made Thalia angier, made her shuffle more as she got closer.

“I’m so glad to see that our product is working!” Insane Jr says cheerily, “You are going to make me and Mac billionaires! You should be honoured!”

Thaila stares daggers into the doctor as she pushes the syringe into her vein and again dispenses the cold liquid. Thaila yanks at the restraints, staring at the woman who just smiles at her. 

“You should rest up for your fight tonight. There’s going to be three contenders for you to fight!” 

Thaila stares at her, her breathing heavy, coming out in huffs. 

“See you soon Thaila!”

11:22pm

Once again, Thaila is dragged out of her darkroom and into the caged ring. The sound of her blood pumping still raged in her ears, as she took a good luck at the three men in front of her. She didn’t care to remember what they looked like, she only saw them dead at her feet. 

“Kill or be killed.” The old man shouts, “Just like last time, don’t let me down young Thaila.” 

She isn’t doing it for him, she’s doing it out of spite towards the gods. There’s a clanging noise to her right as a weapon is thrown into the ring. Her eyes flickered up at the men, noticing the weapons in their own hands, so she walks over and picks it up. Her grip is tight on the hilt of the old sword.

Nobody moved for a few moments. The four of them stood there, staring at each other, waiting for something to happen. Pepsi, Thaila deems the man on the right, charges at her, swinging the Hatchett with no target attended. Thaila deflects the swing with her sword, bringing the blade to the back of the man’s knee and slicing, bringing him down to her height. With no hesitation she swings the sword and slices Pepsi’s head clean off. 

Thaila turns and looks over at Jumbo and Jimbo, who turn to look at each other before muttering something in Persian. Jimbo rushed at her, holding a sledgehammer, he swung wildly, each swing getting closer and closer to hitting Thaila. Another heavy swing makes her trip up and fall onto her back. Jimbo gets greedy and swings the sledgehammer down, Thaila rolls to the side in time to stop it from missing her head and she stabs the sword into the man’s back and straight out the front of his chest. 

Thaila tries to pull the sword out but the sword wouldn’t budge, and she's so focused on the sword she doesn’t pay attention as Jumbo tackles her hard into the ground. Thaila feels a wave of pain roll through her body as she tries to fight him off. 

Jumbo uses his weight to his advantage, sitting on top of her as he begins swinging his fists into every open spot he could get. Thaila tried her best to block each swing but the rapid succession was a bit much for her and it started to anger her. She screams loudly as she catches one arm, locked in the elbow of her own, and she headbutts him hard. 

He tilts back, hands to his head, Thaila punches him hard in the crotch, and Jumbo falls back off her, a grunt of pain escaping his lips as Thaila rolls to her feet. She turns and looks over at Jimbo, to lay on his side, blood pooling around him. She walks over, tugs at the sword, accepting with a sigh that it wasn’t going to budge. Thaila spots the knife hilt on the deceased man’s hip and quickly grabs it as Jumbo begins to stand up. 

She walks over to the man, grabs his hair and yanks back before stabbing the blade into his throat, staring directly into his eyes, watching the life drain out as the blood spews out and covers her hand. It's then something inside her wakes up, she drops her grip on his head and the knife and watches him fall, staring at the scenes in front of her, the sound of her blood pumping in her ears was loud. 

Way too loud. 

Thaila covers her ears, eyes closed as she drops to her knees 

_ Monster. Murderer.  _ _ Sadistic. Cold-hearted.  _

Her mind screamed harsh words at her, making her scream for it to stop. She feels herself get grabbed by strong arms and dragged across the room, down the hallways, and then finally strapped to the chair. 

She screams at the old man, who stands grinning at her as Insane Jr. flicks the needle and steps forward. The goon shoves the mouth guard into her mouth as the cold metal slides into her skin, disposing the icy liquid into her bloodstream once again. 

“You are doing such a fine job young Thaila. You are becoming everything you were meant to be.”

Thaila stares at him only for a moment before her eyes become heavy and she falls asleep, the rage inside of her boiling up once again. 

November 21st 1:35pm

For what she thinks is the fifteenth time, she stares up at the old man and Insane jr, watching as the woman flicked the needle. 

“Oh young Thaila, Is that hope I see gleaming in your eyes? I wonder what kind of hope you're holding on to… perhaps it's your team coming back to get you? That is a weird hope to have, oh yes. Considering they are the ones that so eagerly and willingly traded you to us for poor old Tomas Huctosos.”

“Liar…” Thaila barely manages, her voice hoarse from all the screaming from the night before, her head was hanging heavy. 

“But I’m not! They were the ones to come to us and offer us the deal!”

“SHUT UP!” 

“Oh that poor young man, Hackett I believe his name was, argued so much with your poor captain, begging for him to change his mind, yet he didn't even try to raise his rifle. Clearly you didn’t mean much to him he didn’t try everything. He just sulked off like a kicked puppy. Quite amusing really.”

Thaila started to rock in her chair, her hands gripped hard on the chair, making her knuckles turn white as she held back tears. All she felt was anger, pure rage and she didn’t know if it was a true source of anger or just filtered by the icy cold liquid that has been pumped into her veins for the last three days. 

“Hold onto the rage Thaila. Save it for tonight… you’ll need it.”

Insane Jr. injects her once again, and the rage immediately gets stronger, more furious and Thaila could swear her vision turns red. 

November 22nd 12:10 am

Thaila was on top of the man, her fist slamming hard into his broken face, she was covered in blood from the four other men she had killed. The man underneath had been dead for a good minute or so but Thaila continued to slam her fists into the wet mess of his skull.

There was clapping behind her, she knew it was the old man as she was hoisted up onto her feet by the goons. “I’m so proud of you Thaila, you are doing amazing. Only four days and you’ve come to embrace what you are!”

Thaila says nothing, just stares at him. Words are wasted on him. He grins at her then tells his men to return her to her cell. 

She no longer fights them when they strap her down and push the mouth guard in. She stares off into the distance for the entire morning. She swears she senses someone behind her the entire time, a sort of warm presence behind her.

She blames the drugs.

2:03pm

“Who was Kyril to you?”

The old man raises his eyebrows in surprise at the sudden change of talk, a small smile rose on his lips as he folded his hands on his back. 

“An old colleague, an old partner in crime. The old fool up and disappeared on us, lost in the wind… just as we were about to make a break in our work with this project. We spent years looking for him.”

“Did you kill him then?”

“No, the lucky bastard actually did die in his sleep. He managed to escape with most of our research from back then, he would’ve gotten a painful death for the betrayal” The old man sneers, “So we looked for the next best thing… his apprentice, you!”

“Me? Why me…?”

“Because he saw something in you, took the time to mold you. You must be worthy of something.”

“He taught me nothing… nothing of whatever you’re doing here.”

“Oh we know that… he grew quite ashamed of our work. He did something better though, he trained you.”

“He didn’t train me in shit.”

“Liar!” The old man snaps, “He spent months training you! Training you in the special arts passed down in his family since ancient times! An art he absolutely refused to share with us!”

“I WAS TWELVE! I DON’T REMEMBER A GODS DAMN THING!”

The old man snickers, waving his hand. “Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. We still have you and we shall continue our project that Kyril helped us start, helped guide… and we will torture you in the way he should’ve gotten for being a traitor.”

Thaila stares daggers into the back as he leaves the room, Insane Jr. slides the needle into her vein and dispenses the poison in. She sits still, letting the rage boil up again. Her eyes close as she focuses on her breathing. 

  
  


November 23rd, 11:24pm

Thaila finally had fresh clothes, though she knew it wouldn’t last long as she was led towards the caged ring again for the fifth night in the row. The goon hands her a knife as she is pushed into the cage. 

A loud buzzing noise rings out as a large group of men walked in, all holding different weapons. Thaila is quick to notice that these men were nothing like the others, the old man must’ve kidnapped them or even paid them to come and fight her. She lets out a sigh as she hears the old man shout something, making the men cheer out in excitement. 

Two men charged at her, she ducked down, slicing the knife at one man’s gut before bringing back to shove the blade into the second man’s spine. The group of men stared at her for a moment before they all charged at her. 

They swung their weapons and their fists but could never seem to land anything as the small woman dodged or deflected everything thrown at her as she picked off each man one by one. 

Thalia throws her knife and it meets its target straight in a man’s forehead, he slumps forward as she picks up a weapon off the ground to block a strike, She kicks at the man’s leg and he falls and she brings down the blade of her weapon to his neck. Thaila continued to cut down the men in rapid succession, cutting throats, chopping off limbs, killing with no mercy. 

The rage and the anger fueling her as she continues to rip the men around her to shreds without a second thought. The last man standing runs at her and she simply flips him and shoves the blade into his neck and pulls it out. 

When the final man drops to the ground, grabbing at his neck, trying to stop the blood spewing from the wound, Thaila stood there, in all of her four foot eleven glory, practically covered in blood as she stared into the booth that the old man had perched himself up in, she looked unimpressed and annoyed. 

The silence of the room was deafening, the old man stared down at her with a look she couldn't read. The blade in her hand started to feel heavy, she debated dropping it but chose not to as she heard something familiar echo through the room.

Gunshots.

Thaila’s eyes flicker up to the old man, who looks like he's in a panic, screaming something to his goons. The girl steps over the dead bodies, heading towards the cage door as one goon runs forward, not even looking for the weapon in her hand as she swings the door 

open, telling her to follow her back to her room.

She steps through the door with a grin. “No.”

The man turns to look at her, a look of anger that is quickly erased with pain as Thaila shoves the blade into his gut, twisting it and ripping it out, letting the man fall to the ground before leaning down and pulling the pistol at his hip, chuckling as she heads out the room and into the hallway.

There’s a bit of mass panic through the base as the old man’s goons were running around like chickens with their heads caught off, screaming about the base being infiltrated. One goon spots her and begins to shout something but gets cut off by a bullet to the skull. 

Thaila smirks as the goons turn their attention to her, she takes no time to unload clips into each goon as she runs barefooted down the hallways, trying to find her way out. She could feel the rage building up inside as the gunfire started to get louder. 

There’s a shouting match happening as she climbs up a flight of stairs, heading towards what anyone could see was the boss's office. Her grip tightens on the pistol as she nears clear. 

“ _ Where is she! _ ” 

Thaila stops in her tracks at the familiar voice. 

“ _ Give us Thaila now! Or suffer the consequences!” _

Captain Aleksanteri Galanis' voice was as loud as ever, angrier than she'd ever heard, she smiled softly… she knew what the old man said was a lie. She approaches the door, hand on the knob, turning it to push it open, it opens slowly as she peers in. 

She sees her captain standing there, her team behind him, holding their weapons towards the old man and Insane Jr.

“Macario Tocci and Gaeteno Bouras, you are under arrest.”

The old man, Macario chuckles, “I think not, Obasi my child.”

Aleksanteri frowns then turns quickly, receiving six shots into his chest, he falls back with a huff. Hackett and Taneli turn on the spot, shock on their faces as Obasi turns on them, firing on them. Taneli takes a bullet to the head and falls. Hackett stops in place, hands on his gut. He stares up at the man who he thought was his brother, whispers something softly before dropping onto his stomach, and lets out his final breath. 

All the anger and rage that had built up inside Thaila breaks as she pushes the door open, catching the three in surprise. Obasi raises his rifle.

“OBASI NO!” Macario screams, catching him off guard and earns him a shot to the neck than one to his skull. To the old man’s right, Gaeteno pulls out a pistol, aiming over at Thaila but couldn’t get a shot off as she takes a shot to the chest. She falls back onto the desk, dying in such a dramatic way that Thaila normally would laugh at in movies. Her aim ends on the old man. She clicks the trigger but finds the weapon empty.

“My perfect killing machine… sweat Thaila.” The old man coos, trying to play it off as if it’s all going according to plan, “You have done well with the test I have laid out for you.”

Thaila drops the pistol on the ground as she approaches him. She grabs him by the collar as she slams him down on the desk. He lets out a yelp as hands grab at her wrists.

“Look at you. A pathetic old man, whimpering in fear when you have no one to protect you.”

“Would you really hurt an unarmed old man? A man begging for his life?”

“Yes.”

Thaila’s hands move to his throat and squeeze hard, staring him in the eyes as he whimpers out one last plea. 

“Killing me would only finish what we’ve started… what we are working towards… you will be accepting that you are truly a monster.”

“Then I shall be just that,” Thaila says, her grip tightening as he chokes, clawing at her hands. “A Monster.” 

The life dies in his eyes as he goes limp, she lets go, watching his body slump to the ground as she just stands there, staring at the wall. For the first time in a while, she feels relaxed. 

There's movement behind her, she doesn’t care to turn around and look at first, she accepts whatever it is that is coming, She has taken care of the old man and his insane co-worker, her part has been done. She hears something whispered behind her that peaks her curiosity so she turns, and lets out a small laugh of relief. 

~

Trident led her team through the halls, they carefully tread over the dead bodies that covered the ground, approaching Captain Galanis' location, they hear gunfire and she runs up the stairs and towards the open office door, sliding to a stop as she takes in what she sees. 

It only lasted a span of a second and a half but she swears she sees a blinding light around a figure, a figure she recognizes so well from the stories of her country. The word slips out without a thought.

“Apollo?”

The figure turns and reveals the person that her team was tasked in finding. The small girl that she had fought so hard to get on her team, only to fail. The girl lets out a short laugh before she drops to the ground in tears. 

Trident’s team rushes into the room behind her, gasping at the scene before them. Trident watches as Basil Adinos crouches beside the dead body of his best friend Obasi. The other three rush to the others, checking for any signs of life. 

Trident’s only worry was Thaila, who was a bloody mess, crying on the ground. The woman walks over, crouching at her side and pulls her face up to look in her eyes. “Kostas, it’s okay, we got you.”

Thaila merely nods and Trident takes note of how much she’s shaking, how she's rocking on the spot, acting as if she was in withdrawal. “Thaila… what did they do to you?”

The girl looks up at her, Trident could see the softness in her blue eyes, she could see the hope in them cracking. The older woman pulls her in for a hug, holding tightly as Thaila begins to sob in her arms. “I got you kid, it’s going to be alright.”

“Cap! Galanis is alive!” Trident looks over with surprise, as Thaila pushes back, “He wants to see Thaila!”

Thaila practically jumps out of Trident's arms and runs over to her captain, dropping to her knees beside him.

The older man rests his hands on the girl's cheek. “I’m so sorry this happened Thaila…”

“Alek… it’s okay, it’s going to be okay!”

“No it isn’t, and that’s okay.” He coughs hard, forcing a smile as she stares up at the woman above him, “I’m dying and it’s okay… I’m so glad that you’re safe… I fought so hard to get a team to look for you…”

“Captain…” Thaila begins to sob, clutching at his armor as he softly rubs her cheek, “Please don’t go.”

“It’s okay Thaila… This is the God's plan.” He coughs again, “You are going to be an amazing soldier, an amazing leader… never let anyone hold you down… climb the ranks, aim for the leader of EKAM, just promise me to never give up.”

“I promise Alek, I promise.” 

The man smiles softly as his hand drops from her cheek and on to his cheek as he passes on. Thaila stares down at the man as Trident kneels beside her and closes his eyes, she’s saying something but Thaila has disappeared into her head space.

Trident sighs as she looks over her recruits. Fawn, Saladin, and Pace stare sadly at Galanis and Thaila. Basil is still over top of Obsei, he wasn’t sad, he was angry. Trident watched him turn and look at the smaller girl, anger in his eyes. 

“Obsei killed them.” Thaila whispers, “He was working with the old man… I wasn’t fast enough…”

“It’s okay kid.” Trident says, “Let's get you back to base, let's get you home.”

**Three months later**

February 16th 2017

Thaila Kostas steps out into the sunlight, shifting her gear as she walks down the pathway to her team. She felt nervous as she approached, she didn’t know how’d they’d like her after she replaced their old teammate.

All thoughts were erased as Fawn Kostoploulos started cheering out her name, a giant grin on her face as Saladin Manikas and Pace Buros stood beside her, shaking their heads with grins at the younger girl's excited behavior. 

Thaila stops to stand in front of them, holding her helmet tightly to her chest as they bombard her with questions about how she was, how excited she was to be a part of their team if she was ready for their first training mission.

Trident clears her throat behind her, a giant smile on her face as she looks down a Thaila. “Welcome to team kid, I'm glad to see you here today but do fall in line please.”

Thaila frowns at her but is pulled back by Fawn to stand beside her and Saladin. She whispers a sorry as she stares up at her new team captain. 

“EKAM has finally approved your code names and you shall now be addressed as so,” Trident says with a smile and her team cheers, leaving Thaila to be confused as Trident waves her hands for them to settle. “Might as well tell Thaila.”

Fawn nods rapidly as she turns to her, “You can call me Eclipse!” Saladin clears his throat on Apollo’s left, “Wendigo.” 

Thaila leans forward to look at the silent woman at the end who softly smiles, “Nova.” 

Thaila repeats each name out loud and grins. “Those are amazing!”

“What about you Thaila?” Pace asks quietly.

“I, I don’t know, I didn’t even know we were picking names…” 

Trident nods as she steps forward. “You have been busy the last few months with the council so it’s understandable but I did have to submit a name for you, and I hope you don’t mind that I chose one for you.”

“No, not at all. I’d probably pick something terrible anyway.” Thaila stammers, a smile on her lips, “What is it?”

“Apollo.”

“Apollo,” Thaila repeats back, a slight squint on her face, “Why?”

Trident stares at the smaller girl, the glow of the sun behind her radiates her, merely confirming what she believes. “Because the night we found you, I swear I saw the god behind you watching over you like he was your patron.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes. You survived a storm and came out in sunlight.” Trident says as she reaches over to rest a hand on her shoulder. “Welcome to the team, Apollo.”

The small girl smiles softly, a warmth in her chest as she looks up at Trident than to her team, “Let’s go kick this training missions ass.”

“You got it kid.”

Present Day

It’s now three am when Crow spots her quickly laying in the sand, not moving as the rain poured down on them. She runs down the beach and towards the girl, calling out her name. When she gets to her side, the small girl looks over at her with a sad smile. 

“Why are you here.”

“Because I’m worried about you Thai!” Crow says as she crouches down, noticing the girl shivering she pulls off her sweater and hands it to the girl, who forces herself to sit up and slip her arms into the warm arms of the zipper sweater. “We’ve been looking all over for you... You really scared me Thaila.”

Apollo looks up at her, noticing the sincere look in her eyes. “I’m sorry Avery… everyone knows I’m a monster now…”

“Shut up Thaila, you’re not a monster!” Avery says, pulling the girl up to her feet then into a tight hug. “That video is nothing but a means to get at me. That video shows how god damn strong you are.”

“But I killed so many damn people in that prison… so easily and so merciless. So god damn monster-like…”

“What you did to survive isn’t what defines you,” Avery says, pulling back to hold the girl’s face in her hands. “What defines you is your love. What defines you is your warmth, your caring nature, your smile. You are the heart of team Rainbow.”

“Lera looked at me like… like she didn’t recognize me…” Thaila sniffs, rubbing her nose on her arm. “There’s nothing to go back to.”

“Lera does not think that way! She is worried sick!” Avery stressed, hands dropping to the girl's shoulders, “Lera has been spamming the group chat for the last four hours as we searched for you! She’s so fucking worried it’s starting to get annoying. Everyone is worried about you Thai.”

“But the video…”

“Enough about the video!” Crow snaps, “That video doesn’t mean shit, That video is of someone surviving the worst the world could give. Nobody cares. If they cared they wouldn’t all be out looking for you right now! Even Thatcher in his pajamas!”

Apollo chuckles at that, remembering what they looked like. 

“Let's get home okay? It’s starting to rain harder now and I think you might actually catch pneumonia from how fucking soaked you are… did you take a dip in the ocean?” 

“Um, not willingly?”

“For fu-” Crow stops herself as she looks down at the girl with a grin, shaking her head, “You’re adorable as hell. Let's just get you home so the team can stop stressing.”

Avery pulls her phone out and messages the group that she found Apollo and that they're on their way home. She tucks the phone back into her pocket before turning around and crouching down. “Up you go.”

“I thought you weren’t a donkey.”

“For tonight, I am.”

Apollo chuckles but climbs on her back, resting her head on her shoulder as she jogs back up the beach towards her bike. Crow put her helmet on Apollo, securing it in place and climbing in front of her and instructed her to wrap her arms around her waist tightly, and the smaller girl did, resting her head against her back as they headed home. 

Apollo pulls the helmet off and hands it to Crow as she hears running behind her. She turns and sees Finka running towards her, Kody right behind her. 

Thaila smiles at her shyly as Finka basically slammed into her, pulling her up into the air and hugging tightly. She is saying something in Russian that Thaila can’t understand but she hugs her girlfriend back, and whispers a string of sorrys. 

When Finka lowers her to the ground, she pulls her in for a soft kiss. “Please, please never do that again  _ Lisa _ , I was so worried.”

“I’m sorry… I thought you hated me.”

“I would never hate you my love.” Finka says, her hands resting on her cheeks, a small smile on her lips, “That video doesn’t change how I feel… you are still the love of my life, always will be.”

“Lera,” Apollo whispers softly as she gets pulled into another tight hug. “Thank you.”

Kody walks over to Crow, a gentle smile on her lips. “Good job told you trusting your instincts was a good idea.”

“Shut up Kody.”

The girl smirks, slapping her shoulder. “Let’s get inside before Doc loses it on us.”

Finka lets her girlfriend jump onto her back, wrapping her legs around her waist, her arms draped over her shoulders as she leans her head against Lera’s. Crow chuckles when she looks back at them.

“She’s asleep isn’t she?” Finka asks with a grin.

Crow chuckles, “She falls asleep so easy… especially in your arms huh.”

Finka shrugs, “She falls asleep so easy because she feels safe here, she doesn’t have to look over her shoulder when she's with us. Besides, she practically ran a marathon. Also, why does she smell like salt.”

“Impromptu dip in the ocean.” Crow chuckles closing the door behind them, “Have a goodnight Lera.”

Finka nods and says goodnight to the two women as she carries her girlfriend to their room. She wakes up her girlfriend so that they could pull the wet clothes off of her and slide into some warm clothing. Apollo crawls into bed and dips under the covers, watching Finka put their wet clothes in the basket before returning to the bed and crawling in beside her girl. Thaila quickly crawls onto her, resting her head on her chest and listens to her heartbeat. 

“I really thought you hated me… feared me.”

“No, never!” Finka looks down at her girl, her fingers softly treading through Apollo’s long black hair. “That look on my face wasn’t fear of you, it was fear of what you went through, what you experience… a bit of anger because I couldn’t protect you from it.”

“Oh…”

“Thaila Phoebe Kostas, I love you more than I can ever explain if you ever doubt that then prepare for a long night because I will prove to you how much you mean to me for hours on end and I won’t stop until I understand how much I love you.”

“Lera, such a sap…”

“For you, I am the softest goddamn thing in the damn world.” Finka agrees, pushing her girlfriend onto her back and hovering over her. “You are my everything Thaila, without you I have nothing… I love you so much.”

Thaila stares up at her girlfriend, tears stinging in her eyes as Finka leans down and kisses her softly. “I love you too Lera.”

“Good.” Finka shifts to lay on her back again, pulling Apollo back into her embrace, “Let’s get some sleep now okay?”

Lera hears nothing in response, she looks down and she's her girlfriend already fast asleep against her breasts. She can’t help but chuckle as sleep slowly takes her away as well. 


	7. So damn exhausted

Crow wasn’t expecting much out of Thursday.

She expected the usual bullshit. Wake up to her beautiful girlfriend, live in bliss for a while, go and have some of Kody’s amazing cooking, working out with her girlfriend, IQ, Finka, and Thorne. Watch her team be a bunch of idiots during their training simulations, take a long hot shower, get a check-up from Finka then finish it off with a nice dinner from Kody and cuddle with Valkyrie. 

It was an annoyingly normal routine but Crow loved it. 

She wasn’t expecting anything to disrupt it so when she entered the showers in the morning to Taylor swifts ‘everything has changed’ blaring loudly, she couldn’t help and investigate. She rounds the counter to see one of the showers on, water hot enough to make the entire area steam up. Crow approaches cautiously, rounding the edge of the divider to see Apollo. Legs pulled into her chest, holding tightly as she stared off into the distance, skin bright pink from the heat of the water. 

Crow steps into the stall, drenching her long sleeve shirt, the water hot enough to practically burn her through the fabric as she turns off the shower. She crouches down low, whispering her name softly. When Apollo doesn’t respond, Crow brings her hand to softly cup her chin and turn her head to face her. The smaller girl's eyes looked sad and tired, she blinked slowly as she returned to reality. 

“You okay Thalia?”

“I… how long have I been zoned out?” She asks, looking up into Crow’s eyes, “I, I must’ve just been thinking about- ah never mind, it’s fine.” 

Crow frowns, watching as the small girl stands up fast and starts to head towards the shower room. The older girl recovers from her confusion and follows her quickly and stops her from leaving the washroom completely naked. 

“Thaila! You’re completely naked!”

“Oh, you’re right.”

“Are you okay, Thaila?” Crow asks, voice dripping in concern, pushes her back towards the towel rack, “This isn’t like you!”

Apollo is staring off into space again, Crow thinks about getting Finka but she knows how busy she was dealing with her research so she wraps the smaller girl in a towel. “What’s going on Thaila?”

The smaller girl looks up, staring straight into Crow’s eyes. “I must’ve had an anxiety attack or something, I'm sure it’s fine.”

“Thaila…”

“It’s okay, honestly!” Apollo forces a smile, pushing past her captain to go for her clothing on the bench. “It happens every once in a while.”

“That doesn't seem okay, Thai!” Crow says, reaching for her wrist and stopping her in her tracks. “Does Lera know?”

“Stop sticking your nose in my business Avery!” Apollo snaps, ripping her arm from the taller woman’s grasp. “Worry about your own damn nightmares!”

Crow stares at her as Apollo storms out the bathroom, leaving her alone with her thoughts. At first, she feels like she has a duty to inform Finka about her Apollo’s behaviour but her mind flashes back to Finka being busy so she goes to the next best person.

She half walks, half jogs towards the R&D lab, surprised with what she finds. 

Kody is actually doing her job for once. Crow walks up behind her as the Italian is completely lost in her work, she looks over her shoulder expecting some kind of reaction but gets none. Crow wanders the lab, looking at creations on the table. Her gaze wanders the photograph that rests on Mira’s desk. 

It’s a different picture from before. The picture had Kody sitting in between Karhu and Mira on the fountain in front of Pantheon in Rome. Eryka looked happy for once as the Italian was pressed into her side, Mira looked as beautiful as ever, hand interlocked with Kody’s and a giant grin.

“Eryka will deny that she had a good time on that trip.” Kody finally speaks, Crow turns to look back at her only to see her still working. “Think that vacation actually helped her get more comfortable in our fun little poly relationship…”

“Comfortable? By what, fucking in every place possible?” 

Kody lets out a chuckle as she finally looks up from her work. “What’s up Blisk?”

“Somethings up with Thaila.”

“Thaila?” Kody spins her chair around, “What do mean, kids, gotta be the most cheerful person on the base…”

Crow turns Mira’s chair around and sits down, crossing her arms across her chest, “I found her in the shower.”

“You interrupted her shower? I’d be acting weird too.”

“Shut up Ammi!”

Kody gives her a look at the nickname but motions with her hand to continue. 

“She was just sitting there, the water was really hot like it scorched me through my shirt.” Crow pulls up her sleeve, flashing the patch of red skin. “She was just sitting there, zoned out, and when I got her to finally snap out of it and come to reality… she just turned to a different person. When she mentioned something about an Anxiety attack, I asked if Finka knows and she just snapped on me.”

Kody hums, flipping a coin between her fingers. “I’ve never seen her have one so I don’t know… might explain why she usually always has a lemon with her.”

“A lemon?”

“Yeah! When you're having a panic or anxiety attack, just bite into a lemon. The bitterness of it distracts your mind and pulls you away from the attack! Very helpful.” Kody states, “But besides that… I’m not all the surprised.”

“What?”

Kody lets out a sigh, “Learn your team Blisk. Thaila has been so busy taking care of everyone else that it's starting to stress her out.”

“I never thought about it like that… she’s so strong that it never occurred to me.”

“Just because she's strong doesn't mean she's not struggling in silence, Blisk.” Kody stands up, flicking the coin over at Crow, who barely misses it. “Thaila is the strong girl who persevered, and she handled it like a champ, nothing can bring her down. She’s the happy girl, the outgoing girl, the charismatic girl. She has friends, she’s funny, she’s pretty, she’s who everyone wants her to be but... Inside she is tormented by an insurmountable amount of pain and anguish and the team? They can’t know that though.”

“Kody are you high again?”

“Unfortunately, no.” She chuckles lightly, “Thaila is so busy taking care of everyone else that she forgets about herself. She got overwhelmed, stressed.”

“So it caused her to do what? Zone out in boiling hot water?”

“Yes. You can’t really control zoning out… much like your blackouts Blisk.” Kody scratches her head, “I wouldn’t tell Lera about it… it’d only stress her out more and potentially put your friendship with Thai at risk.”

“So what should I do Doc?”

Kody shrugs, moving over to the far desk, picking up Thorne’s gadget and lightly tossing it up in the air. “I don’t know, take her out for ice cream? Take her somewhere that she can take pictures… I know she’s been talking about going up to Scotland. I don’t know dude, just get to know her.”

“Your hundred and sixty-seven IQ coming in clutch huh, Ammi?” When Kody flips her off, Crow laughs, walking past her Italian friend, gently putting her military coin down on the desk beside her. “Thank you, Kodes, I’ll see you around.”

Kody turns to her, a slight smile on her lips, “You’re feelings are showing Blisk, be careful.”

“Fuck off.” 

Crow hears her friend chuckling as she leaves the lab to go find Apollo. 

~~~

Crow finds Apollo eventually, sitting next to Thorne and Echo in the living area, playing games on their switches, a comfortable silence between the three of them. Crow clears her throat as she stands in the doorway, catching Apollo’s gaze. She gives her best attempt at a smile that Apollo smirks at. 

The small girl excuses herself and walks over to Crow, holding her switch to her chest. “Hey Avery… I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me.”

“Why would you think that?” 

“After what I said… It was kinda dickish.”

“It sure was but it’ll buff right?” Crow jokes, earning a genuine smile from Apollo, “Wanna go out for a bit?”

“Where too?”

“Well… I still owe you for that ice cream after Peru, wanna get some?”

“Say no more fam,” Apollo says as she quickly turns and runs out the room. Crow looks over at her two Japanese friends who are sitting there smiling like cats at her reaction.

The drive is silent, Apollo was lost in her game and it left Crow to think about what the entire experience again. Think about everything that could’ve led to this. The Greece mission, The mission in Peru, getting hit by blitz, getting shot in Toronto. It dawns on her that she never asked how she was mentally, never checked up on her. She always assumed Thaila was fine, that nothing bothered her. Crow felt like a terrible Captain, a terrible friend. 

They arrive at their destination, Apollo grinning over at Crow as she opens her door and drops her device onto the seat. The taller woman follows her out of the truck and towards the store, chuckling as she watches the smaller girl. 

They order they’re ice cream, Crow settles for a simple chocolate flavour in a bowl as Apollo goes for three scoops of Bear claw in a sugar cone. They sit in the bed of the truck, watching cars pass on the street, letting the silence sit comfortably between them. 

“I’m not afraid.”

“What?”

“About everything that has happened and what will happen. I’m not afraid.” Apollo declared, and Crow could tell she wasn’t but she could sense the anger, which she knew was a more productive cousin of fear. “Before I joined team rainbow, I woke up every day and I felt like I had no purpose… I hated the way the sun shined into my room. Then I met Lera, standing over me with that damn cocky ass smile and everything changed… I wasn’t used to being loved so I didn’t… I don’t know what to do..”

Apollo returns to her silence for a moment as she licks her ice cream, Crow stares at her in wonder, she wants to protect her from everything but knows that Thaila will kick and scream her way into a fight. “I told you about Kyril right?”

“Your mentor? Yes.”

“He once told me a story, would you like to hear?”

Crow raised her eyebrows in surprise, “Sure.”

Apollo clears her throat, “ There’s this man and he’s walking along the beach, along a deserted section of the ocean, and as he rounds the point he sees in front of him an unbelievable scene. There on the beach, spread out across the sand, are starfish, thousands and thousands, hell maybe millions of starfish. They extend along the beach as far as the eye can see. The man stands there, stunned, hardly able to believe this scene before him. He wondered what caused this to happen, this massive tragedy. All of these starfish, up the beach, out of the water, slowly dying.” 

Apollo takes a breath, taking a few more licks from her ice cream. “And as he’s watching his eye is caught by the sight of motion further along the beach. It’s a person. Carefully he threads his way between the starfish, walking towards this other person. As he gets closer he realizes that it’s a young boy. He can’t be more than ten or eleven years old. As he walks he watches the boy. At first, he doesn’t know what the boy is doing but then he realizes what he’s seeing. The little boy is picking up starfish, one at a time, plucking them off the beach and tossing them into the water.” 

Crow watches Apollo closely, taking every word into her mind as the smaller girl gets lost in her story.

“The man calls out to the boy. The boy waves back but continues to toss in starfish. The man talks to the boy about this scene that surrounds them, about the mysterious forces of nature. The boy keeps working. Taking another starfish and then another and throwing them back into the sea. ‘You know son, what you’re doing is very nice,’ the man says, ‘but look around. There are millions and millions of these starfish. What you’re doing, it doesn’t make a difference.’ The boy picks up another starfish, tosses it into the water, and then turns to the man. ‘It made a difference for that one.’ He picks up another starfish, ‘And that one.’ And picks up another starfish. ‘And that one.’

Apollo looks over at Crow, who is looking off into the distance now, silent. “Kyril said to me, ‘Nobody is asking you to forget, but I am asking you to remember your mother, try to honour her because giving up is like saying that life isn’t precious… and yours is precious. Don’t let the evil those men did claim another casualty of their actions.’”

Crow stares down at her empty bowl before finally speaking, “Pretty smart aren’t ya?”

“I listen to smart people. I’m just hoping one smart person will listen to me.” Apollo sighs, “I like to help our team, Ember and Buha are fighting battles and they’re the type of people to keep it inside so I have to make sure they’re fine. Rickett is like a bouncy ball in a small closed-off room, never knowing what she’s feeling or thinking… Helping them helps me.”

“I should be the one doing that Thaila,” Crow says, scratching the back of her head. “Let me take that responsibility.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I love you Avery I do… but I don’t think you can handle that…” Apollo says quietly, eating the cone. “I can tell that something is eating you up inside right now and for some reason only Mizuki knows… and that's fine honestly, I’ll take care of them. It helps me.”

“Only if I can take care of you.”

“Av?”

“You…” Crow starts, looking down at the bowel in her hands, moving to place it beside her so she can turn and look at the smaller girl, carefully finding the words, trusting that the world won’t collapse when she says it. “Thaila… You’re like my sister, no, you are my sister. And I'm not exactly sure why I feel this but I want to be able to protect you as a big sister should. So tell me things, tell me when things get hard and your brain is beating itself up!”

“Sister huh?”

“Yea- yes.” Crow stares at her, taking every little feature of the smaller girl's face, the scar on her right brow, the softness in her ocean blue eyes, giving Crow the feeling of coming home, the smile she’s giving her making her feel safe. “You're my sister.”

“Okay, then you should know I got a tattoo.”

“I’m sorry?”

Apollo smirks, rolling up her sweater sleeve to reveal a small fox staring up at a bird that she’s quick to notice is a Crow. 

“Thaila…”

“Buha dared me, said I wouldn't… I don’t regret it.” Apollo grins in her little fox way, “It just represents us!”

Crow sighs and pulls the smaller girl into a tight hug. 

“I love you Avery… but you’re crushing me.”

Crow pulls back quickly and sees Apollo smiling up at her. “Can I get a second?”

“Yeah, sure kid.” The taller girl hands over her debit card and watches Apollo jump off the bed of the truck and run back towards the store, she sees a woman staring at her, giving her a look of ‘You’re letting your child run off on her own.’ which makes her chuckle as she slides off the bed and closes the door. 

It dawns on Crow then what Kody meant.

Crow spots the small Greek woman through the glass, looking over at her with a soft smile, and Avery finally notices it. She notices how Apollo is so strong but yet, she is so exhausted.

Crow had never felt the need to protect someone so much before in her life. The eternal ray of sunshine of team rainbow, the beam of life that is keeping everyone alive and well. Crow was ready to give it all up to protect Apollo. But she thinks that maybe, just maybe, this is what being a sister is like.


	8. the smallest voices, they can make it major

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another look into Apollo's past

To say it's been a rough day would be a lie.

Try a couple of weeks. 

Apollo made a small miscalculation during a training simulation which caused her team to lose, Kingdom’s team cheered loudly, fist-bumping each other and grinning from ear to ear as Ember helped Rickett to her feet. Crow shot her a look before pulling an injured Buha to his feet, blood trickling out of the gash on his thigh, soaking his pant leg. 

Apollo drops her gaze to the ground as she listens to Buha mutter something under his breath towards the smaller girl. Someone puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes tightly, looking up to see Thunder giving her a small smile. 

“You did good, little one.” Her voice was warm and comforting, “You took a chance and sure, it didn’t work out in your favour but at least you tried something out. I enjoy seeing what you do next.” 

“Thank you Perun.” 

“See you in the dining hall, keep your head up okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Thunder gives her a nod before jogging away to meet up with her team. Apollo turns to look for her team, seeing no one stayed behind for her. Thalia lets her gadget fall to the ground before slamming her heel into it. 

“Useless. Just like me.”

She takes another second to wipe the tears from her eyes before walking towards their locker room. Rickett and Ember glare at her as Apollo pulls off her vest and drops it down on the bench. Her eyes drop to her hands which are shaking, pulling them into fists to try and calm them. The locker room door slams open as Crow stomps in towards her.

“Avery…”

“What the fuck were you thinking!” She was angry, the angriest Apollo has ever seen her, “Not only did you endanger yourself, you endangered your team! If Danut was a few steps behind the damn beam would’ve crushed his head!”

“I’m sorry Avery I didn’t thin-”

“No, you weren’t!” She snaps, “Buha is bedridden for a few weeks because of your dumb decision making!”

“Ave-”

“You’re always trying to do something without the knowledge of your team!” Crow had a look in her eyes that scared Apollo, it was a look she remembered so vividly as a child, “You are not some lone wolf! You’re decisions, actions, they impact your team!”

Crow’s sudden movement towards Apollo made the small girl flinch back, heart racing as the older woman continued to yell at her. Thalia's eyes jumped over to her teammates who stared at her with their own look of anger. 

“I’m sorry…”

“Are you?!” Crow shouts, “It sure as hell doesn’t seem like it!”

Crow raises her arm in a quick movement which makes Apollo fall down and cower behind her own arm in defense. The smaller girl closes her eyes, waiting for the impact that never comes. 

“Thalia?” Crow’s voice was soft, as she crouched next to her, Apollo catches the looks from her teammates before looking at the look on her girlfriend’s face. “I didn’t mean to-”

Apollo gets to her feet and once again bolts away from the situation. She’s running through the halls of the base, making a beeline to the front doors but she’s stopped by Karhu, who picks her up easily into her arms.

“Let me go!”

“No can do kiddo!” Karhu says as she turns and begins walking down towards her room, “We aren't going to do another search party.”

Apollo tries to wiggle out of the women’s grip, letting out an annoyed grunt when she finally gives up and lets herself be carried... Karhu gently lowers Apollo down, laughing when the smaller girl punches her hard in the arm. “I don’t like being carried.”

“I know but I wasn’t going to let you wander off into the middle of nowhere again. We don’t need that stress again.” Apollo pouts and drops to the floor, crossing her legs and arms as she stares up at Karhu. “I’m not sure what’s going on in that head of yours but I know you need to talk about it… I’m going to go get Lera so-”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t want to talk to her.”

“Okay then… Avery? I know you’re kinda close with her since your recruitment.”

“No.”

Karhu sighs loudly, hands dragging down her face as Apollo continues to stare up at her like a kid. “Fine. Kody it is.”

“Why are you annoyed at that?”

“At what?”

“At me talking to one of your girlfriends.”

“I wanted to do something with her but it's fine because you need her more.”

“Not really, no.”

Karhu glares at her before opening the door and stepping out, leaving Apollo to herself and her thoughts. She drops her arms, looking down at her palms. Eyes glancing over the small scars on them from her childhood. Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath and remembers. 

2002

Thalia glances up at her mother, a finger in her nose, watching with wide eyes as her mother speaks with elegance with the man at the bank. The words were nonsense to a seven-year-old who just wanted to go play but she had patience as her mother worked so hard to keep them in a home. 

A few more minutes pass before Selene Kostas stands up, shakes the man’s hand before taking her daughter’s hand and walking out of the office. Playfully swinging their arms and laughing when gunfire rings through the building. Selene drops her bag and pulls her daughter into her arms in fear as six masked figures walk in. 

There’s loud shouting and screaming and it scares Thalia, she sinks into her mother’s embrace, trying to hide away from the noises. A man tries to make a run for it but gets shot, falling onto his face right in front of Thalia and her mother, Selene so desperately trying to cover her child’s eyes. 

Minutes pass as the sirens of police cars and the sound of helicopters in the air surround the building. The robbers are becoming anxious as they ignore the calls from the police officers who are trying to get the hostages out. The robbers are shouting at each other now, angry at each other, angry that their plan is falling apart. 

Thalia is holding tightly onto her mother when one of the robbers walks over and grabs her harshly at Selene, pulling her to her feet, Thalia following with. The man grumbles something then kicks Thalia down. “You! Old lady, hold the child or I’ll shoot you!”

The older lady nods weakly and pulls Thalia into her embrace, holding tightly. “It’s okay sweetie, your momma is going to be right back, it’s okay.”

“Momma!” Thalia shouts, trying to pull herself out of the older woman’s grip so she could run to her mother’s side. “MOM! LET ME GO! MOMMY!”

The robber shouts something and smacks Selene’s head with the pistol, making her grunt, turning towards her daughter. “It's okay baby! Momma is going to be right back, stay with the nice lady okay!”

Thalia knows deep down that it wasn’t okay, that her mom was in danger but she complies, melting into the arms of the old woman who continues to whisper soft words into her ear. It feels like an eternity that this whole situation goes on. The robbers are shouting once again as they begin to head towards the back of the building just as the cops begin to breach the building. 

The robber holding Selene is the last one to walk through the door leading to the back. His friends shout something and he grunts, pushing Selene forward before whispering “Sorry to do this to your kid.” before shooting her in the back of the head. 

Thalia screams loudly as her mother falls, breaking from the older woman's grip and running towards her mother. The officers try to grab her but she's too fast, collapsing next to her mother, trying to shake her awake. 

“Momma? Wake up, it's me!” Selene doesn’t respond as Thalia shakes her repeatedly, officers in black uniforms storm past her to the door, preparing to breach it. 

There is a rough tug at her arm as someone tries to pull her away from the body of her mother but Thalia swings her elbow back, getting the man in the groin. There’s a mutter of words before a second man crouches next to her, a hand on her back. Thalia looks up into the man's kind, but sad, eyes. 

“It’s going to be okay, kid.” He assures her, “We need to move you out of the area to get the men that did this, can you take my hand and come with me?”

Thalia's eyes flicker down the man’s uniform, eyes glancing over the name, Galanis. She looks down at her mother, already knowing that her mother won't respond, so she reaches up and takes the man’s hand, letting herself be pulled up into his arms as he begins to carry her out of the building. Thalia watching as more uniformed men ran in, the letters EKAM labeled boldly on their backs as an explosion pops off and they all rush through the door. 

The man brings her to the EMT, turning to walk away before stopping and looking back at the girl, who is staring into the void. Galanis sighs, says something through his radio before walking back over to the girl and crouching in front of her. “It’s going to be okay kid, what your name.”

“Thalia… Thalia Kostas.”

“Okay Thalia, you have a dad I can contact.” She shakes her head no, “Grandparents?”

Another head shake. 

Aleksanteri Galanis lets out a deep sigh, pushing away the anger for the men that did this to her, taking away the girl's only relative, making the girl an orphan. “It’s going to be okay Thalia.”

“No…” She says quietly, “No, it’s not.”

Aleksanteri doesn’t say anything because he knows she’s right. 

He stays with her for the entire night, letting the girl rest in his arms as she falls asleep. The social workers come and they try to pull her away but Thalia’s grip was too tight on the man's armor, Aleksanteri offers to carry her to the foster home.

He lays her down carefully into the bed of the foster family, her hand grabbing at his as he turned to leave. Crouching beside her, he brushes the tangled black hair back from her face as she stares up at him, her big blue eyes full of sadness. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going back to my own home.”

There's a sadness to her voice as she drops her hand, “Will I see you again Gally?”

“I don’t know, young one.” He brushes his fingers against her cheek, “But if not, I’ll be thinking of you always, hopefully, we do meet again little fox.”

“Goodbye Gally.”

“Goodbye Thalia.”

The man stands, taking a final glance at the sleeping girl before stepping out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him as he descends down the steps towards the new foster parent and the social worker. Aleksanteri takes a strong glance at the foster father, a silent look of promise to hurt him if anything bad happens.

Aleksanteri stares back up at the house, says a silent prayer to the gods, then slides into the back seat of the vehicle and disappears into the night. 

A month has passed since the incident, things seemed calm and warming in the house until one day Thalia makes a mistake and her foster parent smacks her hard across the face. She stared up at him in fear as he yelled at her over something so little. 

  
  


2006

The string of abuse would continue for four years. Every little mistake made would result in a beating, whether it was the man's fists or his belt. Sometimes it’d be whatever he could grab at the moment. A wooden spoon, a piece of metal, a broom handle, anything to punish the girl. 

Thalia was too young to fully process that it wasn’t normal for this behaviour to happen so she suffered in her silence, crying herself to sleep and oftentimes went to bed hungry.

One day on her way home from school she found herself wandering into town, finding herself in front of the bank, staring up at the large building, anger riling up in her stomach at the memories because now she knows better, she knows fully what happened and she's so mad. 

A man bumps into her hard enough that she falls forward. She stops the fall with her hands, scrapping them against the rough sidewalk, she stays there for a moment before slowly pushing herself up. There’s a sharp pain in her gut that makes her drop down again.

A strong hand under her arm helps her up onto her feet. Thalia’s hand goes to her gut as she turns to look up at the familiar face of the man. “You okay kid?”

Thalia nods, trying to find words but nothing escapes as he gives her a small smile and turns away. She swallows deeply and calls out, “Gally?”

The man stops, turning to look back at her. He squints over at her, taking a full glance at her face. “Thalia?” He smiles softly and walks over, pulling her into a tight hug. She suppresses a grunt at the contact and returns it. “It’s so good to see you!”

“You too Gally.”

“What brought you here?”

“Not sure… my brain just brought me here… not sure why.”

Aleksanteri hums softly, his hand rubbing at the rough stubble on his chin, thinking for a moment before frowning and looking down at the girl. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Today is the day…” Aleksanteri stares at her and sees that she is clueless, “Of your mother's passing.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

Thalia shrugs, crossing her arms. “I don’t really remember stuff like that… Pokteri says that I must remember more important things, though I never do.”

“Pokteri? He is still treating you well, yes?”

Thalia stares up at him and nods quickly. “Yeah, he does.”

Aleksanteri checks his watch and looks at the girl, “I’ve got a few hours of free time before I have to be back at work, how about we go get some ice cream and you can tell me all about school and such?”

Thalia smiles softly and nods, “I’d like that a lot, thank you!”

Aleksanteri listens to her talk with full attention, smiling with great interest at each little bit of her life. He is glad that she is having a good time in school, excelling in the sciences and her fitness classes. Thalia invites him to come to her track meet, he makes no promises to show up but says he will try and come. 

It’s when they prepare to part that Pokteri calls her on the cruddy mobile phone, Aleksanteri can hear the angry words coming through, he raises a brow at how silent the girl gets, how carefully she gets when she responds. When she hangs up and slides the phone into her pocket, she smiles and stands up. “I should get home... I’ve been out too long.”

“Sure, how about I walk you home?” 

Thalia pulls her backpack back on and shakes her head. “No, no. it’s okay really, I should get home right away.” 

“Thalia?” Aleksanteri stands up quickly and it makes the small girl flinch and step back, tripping over a branch on the ground, she lets out a loud groan as she falls onto her back. He kneels next to her as she sits up, in visible pain. “Are you okay, Fox?”

“Just a small pain, it’ll go away.”

“Thalia you look like you are in great pain.”

“It's just from my punishments, it's fine really.”

“Punishments?” Aleksanteri's voice hardens as she holds her down, “What are these punishments? Is this from Pokteri?”

Thalia nods, then tells him about everything, she can see the anger in his eyes and she scrambles to tell him that it was nothing that she didn’t deserve, that it was fine.

“Him hurting you like this is not okay Thalia!” Aleksanteri says as he pulls out his phone, “He is abusing you!”

“It's just normal punishment from parents is what he says!”

“Hitting you with random objects is not a punishment little fox, it is abuse and I cannot let it continue!” Thalia watches him as he makes a call, he’s looking at her with soft eyes. When the call ends, he helps her to her feet and smiles at her. “You’re going to be removed from his care and put somewhere safer.” 

The rest of the day was a blur. 

Aleksanteri drove her home just as cops had arrived to arrest Pokteri, who steps out of the house in anger at the commotion. His glance catches the taller man standing behind his foster child and panics back into the house. Aleksanteri shouts something to the cops who nod and rush up the steps of the house, kick the door in and return a few moments later with Pokteri in cuffs. 

He calls Thalia a string of words that she’s heard so many times that she just stares down at the ground. Aleksanteri is still standing behind her, anger rolling off of him in waves, he gives a short wave as the cop car drives off with the man in the back seat. “Let’s go inside and pack some things okay?”

Thalia simply nods and lets the man lead her inside and into her bedroom. Aleksanteri takes note of how neat and clean the room is but also how empty it was. “There isn’t much… just clothes and school work.”

“No toys? No stuffed animals?”

“No. He said that toys were for the weak-willed.” Thalia says sitting down on the bed, hugging her backpack to her chest. “I thought it was normal.”

Aleksanteri lets out a heavy sigh of anger, looking over at the girl, he sees her eyes in panic at the noise. “I’m sorry, it was not towards you, merely at the pathetic man.” He crouches down in front of her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Why didn’t you take me with you back then?”

Aleksanteri looks at her with a look that she wasn’t sure she understood. “I could not because of my job, I wasn’t equipped to take care of a child.”

“And now?”

“My job still takes me away from home too much.”

“Why not? Take me with you! I’ll be good!”

Aleksanteri cups her face in his hands, “I know you would but there is more to this fostering thing than you know. A lot of steps. One of them is the fact that I actually live in Athens, not here in Mitilini. I’ll keep in contact this time, I’ll be here.”

Thalia hugs him tightly, letting herself cry into his shoulder as she hugs him. He rubs her back, whispering softly into her ear. 

A few hours later she is brought to her new foster family. A father and a mother with their own three children, they welcome her in with open arms. Aleksanteri helps her put her clothing away into her new dresser, he helps her create an email so they could keep contact, promising her to be there when she needs him. She hugs him tightly before he parts. 

“Goodbye Gally.”

“I’ll see you soon, young fox.”

She returns the smile and watches him drive off. Her new foster parents call her inside, and for the first time in a while, she feels safe. 

Three months later, after the school year, Thalia’s foster siblings drag her outside for a hike where they purposely leave her behind in the woods. She tries not to be angry at them, tries to see it as a joke but can only get angry because they know she has no clue how to get home. 

She wanders for hours before she finds herself in the backyard of someone's house. She starts towards the house before stopping at someone’s voice. “Lost young one?”

“I- uh, yes.”

“Let me guess, the vangopoulos boys ditched you?”

“Yes, how’d you know?”

“This isn’t the first time that they’ve done this and it won’t be the last, that’s for sure.” The old man is chuckling as he sits on a bench, a bunch of pigeons at his feet. Thalia approaches carefully and sits down at his side. “They are your new foster siblings?”

“Yes sir.”

The man hums, hand scratching at his beard. “They are a handful and can be quite rude but don’t let them break your spirit.”

“I’ll try not too,” Thalia says, staring at the man, taking in how calm he is but also how he’s staring into the distance as his hands toss birdseed onto the ground for the birds. “They haven’t been too bad. Just teasing and such…”

“It always starts with teasing, young one.” The old man turns and looks at her, his eyes glossy as he holds out his hand. “I am Kyril Avgeropoulos.”

“Thalia Kostas” 

The old man's grip was strong as she shook her hand. “If you haven’t come to the realization yet, I am blind.”

“Okay.”

Kyril smiles, his gaze still on her for a moment before he stands up and walks away towards the cliff edge. Thalia, for whatever reasons, follows him. She looks over at him, a bit of wonder in the back of her thoughts as he overlooked the ocean. “It’s a shame that I cannot see… that’s what you are thinking isn’t it.”

“No, it isn’t” Thalia says, staring out into the distance, “I was thinking about how happy you seem.”

“I believe you.” Kyril lets out another hum,” Most people seem to have pity for me, their words dripping in caution but you are different, young one.”

“A good different, I hope?”

“Most definitely.”

They stand in silence for a while, just listening to the waves of the ocean, the sounds of birds chirping. Thalia watching the sun begin to drop, feeling safe and calm beside the old man’s side.

“It seems your ride is here.” 

Thalia frowns at the man as the back gate opens and her foster mother walks in. Thalia smiles at the man. He places a hand on her shoulder, a light squeeze. “You are welcome here anytime young Thalia. Have a nice night.”

“You to Kyril, see you later.”

Thalia walks over to her foster mother who holds out a sweater. She slips it on and silently follows the woman out to the car. “I’m sorry for the boys, they can be a bit… rude.”

“It’s okay Helen, I’m not mad.”

“No?”

“No. Annoyed maybe but it's what brothers are supposed to do, right?”

The older woman smiles at her, “Sometimes. Brothers are always different.”

Thalia shrugs in response, sitting in silence for the entire ride. Not sure what the future holds.

~~~

2013

Thalia drops to her knees, heeling over as she coughs blood. She stares down at the ground as blood drips off her face, whether it was from the busted lip, the gash on her brow, or from her bloody nose, she wasn’t quite sure. 

Borak kicks her hard in the ribs and Thalia rolls back, hand on her gut as she looks up at her three foster brothers, they smile down at her. She’s breathing heavily as she gets to her feet, her blood has dripped down onto her shirt, staining the white fabric for good. 

She only had to survive one more month of this. One more month and she’s free from the fights, the insults, the constant bullying. Borak looks over to his twin, Flavion, there both grinning as Sandor steps forward and brings his fist to her jaw. 

Thalia looked at them, the three of them towered over her and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She waited for Sandor to approach before kicking him in the shin harder than punching him in the gut so he doubled down so she could bring her knee to his chin. Sandor falls crying out in pain. The twins look at each other quickly before deciding to run at her.

She drops down between the two of them, tripping Borak while she grabs Flavion’s shirt and tugs him back hard. His head hits the ground hard as Borak rolls to his feet and moves towards her, swinging his leg for a kick that she catches. 

“Hope you don’t have serious plans of going pro,” Thalia says as she slams her elbow down on his ankle. Borak collapses in a cry of pain, hands dropping to his ankle. 

A Door slams shut, capturing Thalia’s attention. She steps back and sees Helen walking up the driveway with a familiar-looking man. Her foster mother shakes her head at her sons as she crouches in front of Thalia, her finger touching her lip. She flinches back as Helen assesses the rest of her injuries. 

“Mom! I think she broke my ankle!” Borak cries out, begging for his mother’s attention. 

“Then you shouldn’t have attacked her.” Helen snaps, as Sandor helps Flavion to his feet. “Thalia are you okay?” 

“Yes, thanks.” She smiles at the woman and looks over at Aleksanteri. “Hey Gally.”

“Hey little Fox.” He’s grinning down at her as she walks over and hugs him. “Glad to see you fine-tuned your skills.”

“I gotta be in the best shape for the military right?” 

Aleksanteri chuckles as he leads her into the house. “Absolutely. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Yes sir.”

Thalia glances over at Helen who is assessing her son’s ankle, “Stop acting like a child, it’s merely a sprain. It’ll heal in a few days. This is instant karma.”

“You’re not going to yell at her?”

“Why would I yell at her when three jack asses attacked, beat her to a pulp? She defended herself. Not my problem a five foot nine woman kicked your asses.”

Aleksanteri and Thalia chuckle to themselves as they step inside the home. 

2019

Thalia stood in front of her mother's grave, she placed the lily’s into the flower holder. She’s not sure what to say so she stays silent for a while, staring down at the tombstone. “I love you mom. I’m going to be away for a while so I won’t be able to see you much anymore but know I’ll always be thinking about you.”

She visits Kyril next, dropping birdseed down, knowing how much he loved birds. “It seems I’ll be doing something important now, just like you said I would. I survived that storm and now a great new opportunity came from the horizon. I miss you Kyril.”

Thalia says her goodbyes to her foster family, a small promise to visit when she can but knows it’s unlikely, before flying out to Athens for one final stop. 

Her final stop was the grave of Aleksanteri Galanis.

She never says much when she visits his grave. It’s always silent. 

“I got recruited into that team you always talked about. Rainbow. Yeah, I don’t exactly know why they want me to be a part of their team. I am nothing like Trident or Pike but for whatever reason it may be… I hope to do you proud.”

Thalia pulls the rose from her bag and slides it into the holder. “I never thanked you for everything you’ve done. You saved me multiple times and all I can offer is two words and a rose.” She sighs as she crouches down, laying her palm flat against the cold stone. “Thank you Gally for being… for being my father. For caring and saving me over and over again. I still miss you and it still hurts to think about what happened but I understand and I forgive you. I wish you were here Gally. I love you.”

She says her final goodbye before heading back to the airport to board the flight to her new life, not once looking back.

Present - 2020

Kody sits in front of her, listening carefully, taking in everything. When Thalia finishes she pulls the smaller girl in for a hug. A nice tight hug. 

“Kody you’re smothering me!”

“Good,” Apollo grumbles under her breath and lets Kody hold her awkwardly. “I’m glad you opened up to me, that you know you can tell me anything.”

Apollo shrugs, hand scratching at her neck. “Who else was I going to talk to? Buha?” That gets Kody to burst into giggles which in turn makes the smaller girl giggle too. “So what’s the assessment from the smartest person I know?”

“Well, first is to tell your girlfriend because yes, she is a major hardass but she cares very much about you and I can already tell that I have a dozen messages from her. Second is to maybe find closure.”

“Closure?”

“Yes,” Kingdom takes Apollo’s hands in her own. “Revisit your old foster family, besides the four dickheads, Helen seemed nice, like she cared for you, saw you as her daughter. She must be hurt from not hearing anything from you.”

Apollo bits her lip, cursing herself for forgetting all about Helen, forgetting how safe the woman felt around her. “I suppose you’re right but I have no time to go anywhere, you know this.”

Kody grins, “I can finally use my psychologist stuff. I’ll get you and Finka a few weeks off so you can go heal and shit.”

“What about the rest of the team?”

“I’ll let them borrow one of mine.” Kody grins, “Helps them get used to working with different people.”

Apollo chuckles as there’s a knock at the door. Kingdom stands up and walks over, opening the door to reveal Finka, looking worried. “Come on in Doc.” 

Finka scoffs at her as she steps inside and stares over at Apollo, who looks up with a scared look. Kody slaps her hand on Finka’s back with a grin. “I’m going to go talk to Harry. Thai, don’t be afraid, you can do it!”

When the door clicks shut, Finka locks the door behind her and walks over to sit next to her girlfriend. “I heard about this morning, I’m sorry I couldn't be here earlier.”

“No it’s okay, I was stup-”

“No! You weren’t!” Finka interrupts, “I was so worried and scared for you! From what I heard, you could’ve been hurt, Avery is also worried. All we could think about was the mission in Peru, then Toronto, then that time in New York and I just… we worry so much about you because you’re so injury prone that Avery blanked on how you felt when she was scolding you because she loves you and doesn’t want to see you hurt and I understand that because I feel the same way Thalia, I love you.”

Apollo stares at her, a brow raised at the confession. A smirk rising to her lips as Finka stares at her. “So, you love me huh?” 

Finka rolls her eyes and pushes Apollo over. “Yeah. Yeah I do brat.” 

Thalia smiles up at her, sitting up and kissing her girlfriend softly. “If you’d like to listen… I’d like to tell you about my crummy life.”

“Yea, I’ll listen.” Finka responds, kissing Apollo again, “I could listen to you forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> incorrectvalk.tumblr.com if you wanna chat


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